SEPH WARREN.! 



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PRESENTED 

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NiTEB States tm 



BY 

1st Lieut. JAMES G. WARREN, C 

September, 1891. 



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THE WRITINGS 



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km ISABELLA THACKERAYi;^ 



Mrs. I^ickw^chxd itC+oica. 



JVITJI ILLUSTRATIONS. 




NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
1870. 



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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE VILLAGE ON TH^ CLIFF •", 

FROM AN ISLAND 107 

FIVE OLD FRIENDS: 

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD « 139 

CINDERELLA 1^>^ 

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 157 

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD 17'> 

JACK THE GIANT-KILLER 193 

THE STORY OF ELIZABETH 233 

TO ESTHER 283 

OUT OF THE WORLD 305 

MAKING MERRY 327 

SOLA , 336 

MORETTIS CAMPANULA 3G3 

MISCELLANIES : 

LITTLE SCHOLARS 38.) 

TOILERS AND SPINSTERS 391 

THE END OF A LONG DAY's AVORK 398 

HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS 400 

A SAD HOUR 40G 

OUT OF THE SILENCE 413 

A CITY OF REFUGE 41G 

CHIRPING CRICKETS 421 




7714 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



DEDICATED TO HARRIET THACKERAY. 

Brighton, January 27, 1867. 



PREFACE. 



WE have all of us in the course of our life's journeys sometimes lived for a little whilfe in places 
which were wearisome and monotonous to us at the time ; which had little to attract or to 
interest ; we may have left them without regret, never even wishing to return. But yet as we 
have travelled away, we may have found that through some subtle and unconscious attraction, 
sights, sounds, and pecuharities which we thought we had scarcely noticed, seem to be repeating 
themselves in our brains ; the atmosphere of the place seems to be haunting us, as though unwill- 
ing to let us escape. And this peculiar distinctness and vividness does not appear to Avear out with 
time and distance. The pictures are like those of a magic-lantern, and come suddenly out of the 
dimness and darkness, starting into life when the lamp is hghted by some chance association ; so 
clearly and sharply defined and colored, that we can scarcely believe that they are only reflections 
from old sUdes which have been lying in our store for years past. 

The slides upon which this little history is painted, somewhat rudely and roughly, have come 
from Petitport in Normandy, a dull little fishing-town upon the coast. It stands almost opposite 
to Ryde, in the Isle of Wight. The place is quite uninteresting, the district is not beautiful, but 
broad and fertile and sad and pleasant together. The country folks are high-spirited and some- 
times gay, but usually grave, as people are who live by the sea. They are a well-grown, stately 
race, good-mannered, ready and shrewd in their talk and their deahngs ; they are willing to make 
friends, but they are at the same time reserved and careful of what they say. English people are 
little known at Petitport — one or two had staid at the Chateau de Tracy "dans le temps," they 
told me, for Madame herself was of English parentage, and so was Madame Fontaine, who married 
from there. But the strangers who came to lodge in the place for the sake of the sea-bathing and 
the fine sands were from Caen and Bayeux for the most part, and only remained during a week or 
two. 

Except just on fete-days and while the bathing-time lasted, every thing was very still at Petit- 
port. Sometimes all the men would ga away together in the boats, leaving the women and chil- 
dren alone in the village. I was there after the bathing-season was over, and before the first fish- 
ing-fleet left. The fishermen's wives were all busy preparing provisions, making ready, sewing at 
warm clothes, and helping to mend the nets before their husbands' departure. I could see them 
hard at work through the open doors as I walked up the steep little village street. 

There is a precipitous path at the farther end of the village which leads down to the beach be- 
low. One comes to it by some steps which descend along the side of a smart httle house built on 
the very edge of the cliff— a " chalet," they call it. It has many windows and weathercocks, and 
muslin curtains and wooden balconies ; and there is a sort of embankment or terrace-walk half- 
way to the sea. This was Madame Fontaine's chalet, the people told me — her husband had left it 
to her in his last will and testament — but she did not inhabit it. I had never seen any one come 
out of the place except once a fiercely capped maid-seiwant with beetle brows, who went climbing 
up the hill beyond the chalet, and finally disappeared over its crest. It seemed as if the maid and 
the house were destined to be blown right away in time ; all the winds came rushing across the 
fields and the countiy, and beating against the hillside, and it was a battle to reach the steps which 
led down to the quiet below. A wide sea is heaving and flashing at one's feet, as one descends the 
steep, the boats lie" like specks on the shingle, birds go flj-ing wind-blown below one's feet, and the 
rushing sound of the tide seems to fill the air. When I reached the foot of the cUflf at last, I looked 
about for some place to rest. A young countrywoman was sitting not far off on the side of a boat, 
— a shabby old boat it was, full of water and sand and sea-weed, with a patch of deal in its old 
brown coat. I was tired, and I went and sat down too. 

The woman did not look round or make any movement, and remained quite still, a quiet figure 
against the long line of coast, staring at the receding tide. Some sailors not far off were shouting 
to one another, and busy with a fishing-smack which they had dragged up high and dry, and safe 



iv PREFACE. 

from the water. Presently one of the men came plodding up over the shingle, and I asked him if 
he wanted his boat. 

" Even if I wanted it, I should not think of disturbing you and Mademoiselle Reine," answered 
the old fellow. He had a kindly puzzled weather-beaten face. "Remain, remain," he said. 

" He, huh !" shouted his companions, filing oft', " come and eat." But he paid no. attention to 
their call, and went on talking. He had been out all night, but he had only caught cuttle-fish, he 
told me. They were not good to eat — they required so much beating before they could be cook- 
ed. They seize the boats with their long straggling legs " Did I hear of their clutching 

hold of poor old Nanon Lefebvre the other day, when she was setting her nets ? Mademoiselle 
Reine could tell the long and short of it, for she was on the spot and called for help. " 

"And you came and killed the beast, and there was an end of it," said Mademoiselle Reine, 
shortly, glancing round with a pair of flashing bright eyes, and then turning her back upon us once 
more. 

Hers was a striking and heroic type of physiognomy. She interested me then, as she has done 
ever since'that day. There was something fierce, bright, good-humored about her. There was a 
heart and strength and sentiment in her face— so I thought, at least, as she flashed round upon us. 
It is a rare combination, for women are not often both gentle and strong. She had turned her back 
again, however, and I went on talking to the old sailor. Had he had a good season — had he been 
fortunate in his fishing ? 

A strange, doubting look came into his face, and he spoke very slowly. "I have read in the 
Holy Gospels," he said, turning his cap round in his hands, " that when St. Peter and his compan- 
ions were commanded to let down their nets, they inclosed such a multitude of fishes that their 
nets brake. I am sorry that the time for miracles is past. I have often caught fish, but my nets 
have never yet broken from the quantity they contained." 

"You are all preparing to start for Dieppe?" I said, to change the subject. 

" We go in a day or two," he answered ; " perhaps a hundred boats will be starting. We go 
here, we go there — may be at a league's distance. It is curious to see. We are drifting about ; 
we ask one another, ' Hast thou found the herring?' and we answer, 'No! there is no sign :' and 
perhaps at last some one says, ' It is at such and such a place.' We have landmarks. We have 
one at Asnelles, for instance," and he pointed to the glittering distant village, on the tongue of land 
which jutted into the s^a at the horizon. "And then it happens," said the old fellow, "that all 

of a sudden we come upon what we are searching for We have enough then, for we find 

them close-packed together, like this ;" and he pressed his two brown hands against one another. 

" And is not that a miracle to satisfy you, Christophe Lefebwe?" said the woman, speaking in 
a deep sweet voice, with a strange ringing chord in it, and once more flashing round. 

" Ah, mademoiselle," he said, quite seriously, " they are but herrings. Now St. Peter caught 
trout in his nets. I saw that in the picture which you showed me last Easter, when I went up to 
Tracy. I am only a rough man," he went on, speaking to me again. " I can't speak like those 
smart gentlemen from Paris, who make ' calembours,' and who have been to college; you must 
forgive me if I have oft'ended you, or said any thing Avrongly. I have only been to one school in 
our little village ; I learnt what I could there " 

"And to that other school, Christophe," said the deep voice again; and the young woman 
pointed to the sea. 

Then he brightened up. "There, indeed, I have learnt a great many things, and I defy any 
of those fine gentlemen to teach me a single fact regarding it." 

"And yet there are some of them — of the fine gentlemen, as you call them, "she said, looking 
him full in the face, "who are not out of place on board a boat, as you ought to know well 
enough. " 

Lefebvre shrugged his shoulders. "Monsieur Richard,"' he said, " and M. de Tracy too, they 
liked being on board, and were not afraid of a wetting. Monsieur Fontaine, pauvre homme, it was 
not courage he wanted. Vous n'avez pas tort. Mademoiselle Reine. Permit me to ask you if you 
have had news lately of' the widow? She is a good and pretty person" (he said to me), "and 
we of the country all like her. " 

"She is good and pretty, as you say," answered the young woman, shortly. "You ask me for 
news, Christophe. I heard some news of her this morning ; they say Madame Fontaine is going 
to be married again. " And then suddenly turning away, Mademoiselle Reine rose abruptly from 
her seat, and walked across the sands out towards the distant sea. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFE. 




PREFACE. 

We have all of us, in the course of our life's 
journeys, sometimes lived for a little while in 
places whicli were wearisome and monotonous 
to us at the time ; which had little to attract or 
to interest ; we may have left them without re- 
gret, never even wishing to return. But yet, 
as we have traveled away, we may have found 
that, through some subtle and unconscious at- 
traction, sights, sounds, and peculiarities which 
we thought we had scarcely noticed, seem to 
be repeating themselves in our brains ; the at- 
mosphere of the place seems to be haunting us, 
as though unwilling to let us escape. And this 
peculiar distinctness and vividness does not ap- 
pear to wear out with time and distance. The 
pictures are like those of a magic-lantern, and 
come suddenly out of the dimness and darkness, 
starting into life when the lamp is lighted by 
some chance association, so clearly and sharply 
defined and colored that we can scarcely believe 
that they are only reflections from old slides 
which have been lying in our store for years past. 

The slides upon which this little history is 
painted, somewhat rudely and roughly, have 
come from Petitport, in Normandy, a dull little 
fishing town upon the coast. It stands almost 
opposite to Ryde, in the Isle of Wight. The 
place is quite ttninteresting, the district is not 



beautiful, but broad, and fertile, and sad, and 
pleasant together. The country folks are high- 
spirited and sometimes gay, but usually grave, 
as people are who live by the sea. They are a 
well-grown, stately race, good-mannered, ready 
and shrewd in their talk and their dealings ; 
they are willing to make friends, but they are 
at the same time reserved and careful of what 
they say. English people are little known at 
Petitport — one or two had staid at the Chateau 
de Tracy " dans le temps," they told me, for 
Madame herself was of English parentage, and 
so was Madame Fontaine who married from 
there. But the strangers who came to lodge in 
the place for the sake of the sea-bathing and the 
fine sands were from Caen and Bayeux for the 
most part, and only remained during a week or 
two. 

Except just on fete-days and while the bath- 
ing-time lasted, every thing was very still at 
Petitport. Sometimes all the men would go 
away together in their boats, leaving the women 
and children alone in the village. I was there 
after the bathing-season was over, and before 
the first fishing-fleet left. The fishermen's wives 
were all busy preparing provisions, making ready, 
sewing at warm clothes, and helping to mend 
the nets before their husbands' departure. I 
could see them hard at work through the open 
doors as I walked up the steep little village 
street. 

There is a precipitous path at the farther end 
of the village which leads down to the beach 
below. One comes to it by some steps which 
descend along the side of a smart little house 
built on the very edge of the cliff" — a " chalet" 
they call it. It has many windows and weath- 
er-cocks, and muslin curtains and wooden bal- 
conies, and there is a sort of embankment or 
terrace-walk half way to the sea. This was 
Madame Fontaine's chalet, the people told me 
— her husband had left it to her in his last will 
and testament — but she did not inhabit it. I 
had never seen any one come out of the place 
except once a fiercely-capped maid-servant with 
beetle brows, who went climbing up the hill be- 
yond the chalet, and finally disappeared over its 
crest. It seemed as if the maid and the house 
were destined to be blown riglit away in time ; 
all the winds came rushing across the fields and 
the country, and beating against the hill-side, 
and it was a battle to reach the steps which led 



THE VILLAGE ON. THE CLIFF. 



1 



down to the quiet below. A wide sea is heav- 
ing and flasliing at one's feet, as one descends 
the steep ; the boats lie like s])ecks on the shin- 
gle ; birds go flying wind-blown below one's 
feet, and the rushing sound of the tide seems to 
fill tlie air. When I reached the foot of tlie 
clift" at last, I looked about for some place to 
rest. A young countrywoman was sitting not 
far off on the side of a boat — a shabby old boat 
it was, full of water, and sand, and sea-weed, 
with a patch of deal in its old brown coat. I 
was tired, and I went and sat down too. 

The woman did not look round or make any 
movement, and remained quite still, a quiet fig- 
ure against the long line of coast, staring at the 
receding tide. Some sailors not far off were 
shouting to one another, and busy with a fishing- 
smack which they had dragged up high and dry 
and safe from the water. Presently one of the 
men came plodding up over the shingle, and I 
asked him if he wanted his boat. 

" Even if I wanted it, I should not think of 
disturbing you and Mademoiselle Reine," an- 
swered the old fellow. He had a kindly puz- 
zled weather-beaten face. "Remain, remain," 
he said. 

"He, huh!" shouted his companions, filing 
ofl^, "come and eat." But he paid no attention 
to their call, and went on talking. He had 
been out all night, but he had only caught cut- 
tle-fish, he told me. They were not good to eat 
— they required so much beating before they 
could be cooked. They seize the boats with 
their long straggling legs ..." Did I hear 
of their clutching hold of poor old Nanon Le- 
febvre the other day, when she was setting her 
nets? Mademoiselle Reine could tell me the 
long and the short of it, for she was on the spot 
and called for help." 

" And you came and killed the beast, and 
there was an end of it," said Mademoiselle 
Reine, shortly, glancing round with a pair of 
flashing bright eyes, and then turning her back 
upon us once more. 

Hers was a striking and heroic type of phys- 
iognomy. She interested me then, as she has 
done ever since that day. There was some- 
thing fierce, bright, good-humored about her. 
There was heart, and strength, and sentiment 
in her face — so I thought, at least, as she flashed 
round upon us. It is a rare combination, for 
women are not often both gentle and strong. 
She had turned her back again, however, and I 
went on talking to the old sailor. Had he had 
a good season — had he been fortunate in his 
fishing? 

A strange doubting look came into his face, 
and he spoke very slowly. "I have read in 
the Holy Gospels," he said, turning his cap 
round in his hands, " that, when St. Peter and 
his coippanions were commanded to let down 
their nets, they inclosed such a multitude of 
fishes that their nets brake. I am sorry that 
the time for miracles is ]>ast. I have often 
caught fish, but my nets have never yet broken 
from the quantity they contained." 



"You are all preparing to start for Dieppe?" 
I said, to change the subject. 

"We go in a day or two," he answered; 
" perliaps a hundred boats will be starting. 
We go here, we go there — may be at a league's 
distance. It is curious to see. We are drift- 
ing about; we ask one another, ' Hast thou 
found the herring ?' and we answer, ' No ! there 
is no sign ;' and perhaps at last some one says, 
'It is at such and such a place.' We have 
landmarks. We have one at Asnelles, for in- 
stance," and he pointed to the glittering distant 
village on the tongue of land which jutted into 
the sea at the horizon. ' ' And then it happens," 
said the old fellow, " that all of a sudden we 
come upon what we are searching for . . . We 
have enough then, for we find them close-pack- 
ed together like tliis;" and he pressed his two 
brown hands against one another. 

"And is not that a miracle to satisfy you, 
Christopher Lefebvre?" said the woman, speak- 
ing in a deep sweet voice, with a strange ring- 
ing chord in it, and once more flashing round. 
"Ah! mademoiselle," he said, quite seriously, 
" they are but herrings. Now St. Peter caught 
trout in his nets. I saw that in the picture 
which you showed me last Easter, when I went 
up to Tracy. I am only a rough man," he 
went on, speaking to me again. "I can't 
speak like' those smart gentlemen from Paris, 
who make ' calembours,' and who have been to 
college ; you must forgive me if I have oflfended 
you, or said any thing wrongly. I have only 
been to one school at our little village ; I learnt 
what I could there . . ." 

"And to that other school, Christophe," said 
the deep voice again ; and the young woman 
pointed to the sea. 

Then he briglitened up. "There, indeed, I 
have learnt a great many things, and I defy any 
one of those fine gentlemen to teach me a sin- 
gle fact regarding it." 

"And yet there are some of them — of the 
fine gentlemen, as you call them," she said, 
looking him full in the face, "who are not out 
of ))lace on board a boat, as you ought to know 
Avell enough." 

Lefebvre shrugged his shoulders. " Mon- 
siem- Richard," he said, "and M. de Tracy 
too, they liked being on board, and were not 
afraid of a wetting. Monsieur Fontaine, pauvrc 
homme, it was not courage he wanted. Vous 
n'avez pas tort. Mademoiselle Reine. Permit 
me to ask you if you have had news lately of 
the widow ? She is a good and pretty person" 
(he said to me), "and we of the country all 
like her." 

"She is good and pretty, as you say," an- 
swered the young woman, shortly. "You ask 
me for news, Christophe. I had some news of 
her. this morning; Madame Fontaine' is going 
to be married again." And then suddenly turn- 
ing away. Mademoiselle Reine rose abruptly 
from her seat and walked across the sands out 
toward the distant sea. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



CHAPTER I. 

ADIEU, CHARMANT PATS. 

Five o'clock on a fine Sunday — western 
lijrht streaming along the shore, low clift's 
stretching away on either side, with tufted grass- 
es and thin straggling flowers growing from the 
loose arid soil — far-away promontories, flashing 
and distant shores, which the tides have not yet 
overlapped, all shining in the sun. The waves 
swell steadily inward, the foam sparkles where 
the ripples meet the sands. 

The horizon is solemn dark blue, but a great 
streak of light crosses the sea ; three white sails 
gleam, so do the white caps of the peasant-wom- 
en, and the wings of the sea-gulls as they go 
swimming through the air. 

Holiday people are out in their Sunday 
clothes. They go strolling along the shore, or 
bathing and screaming to each other in the wa- 
ters. The countrymen wear their blue smocks 
of a dai-ker blue than the sea, and they walk by 
their wives and sweethearts in their gay-colored 
Sunday petticoats. A priest goes by ; a grand 
lady in frills, yellow shoes, red jacket, fly-away 
hat, and a cane. Her husband is also in scar- 
let and yellow. Then come more women and 
Normandy caps flapping, gossiping together, and 
baskets and babies, and huge umbrellas. A 
figure, harlequin-like, all stripes and long legs, 
suddenly darts from behind a rock, and frisks 
into the water, followed by a dog barking furi- 
ously. More priests go by from the seminary at 
Asnelles. Then perhaps a sister of charity, with 
her large flat shoes, accompanied by two grand- 
looking bonnets. 

I believe M. le Sous-pre'fet himself had been 
seen on the sands that afternoon by Marion, by 
Isabeau, by Madame Potier, and all the village, 
in short. M. le Maire had also been remarked 
walking with the English gentlemen from the 
chateau ; one pair of eyes watched the two cu- 
riously as they went by. The little English- 
man was sauntering in his odd loose clothes; 
Monsieur Fontaine, the maire, tripping beside 
him with short, quick military steps, neat gai- 
ters, a cane, thread gloves, and a curly-rimmed 
Panama hat. M. Fontaine was the taller of 
the two, but the Englishman seemed to keep 
ahead somehow, although he only sauntered and 
dragged one leg lazily after the other. Pelot- 
tier, the inn-keeper, had been parading up and 
down all the afternoon with his rich and hideous 
bride. She went mincing along, with a parasol, 
and mittens, and gold earrings, and a great gold 
ring on her fore finger, and a Paris cap stuck 
over with pins and orange-flowers. She looked 
daggers at Eeine Chre'tien, who had scorned Pe- 
lottier, and boxed his great red ears, it was said, 
earrings and all. As for Heine, she marched 
past the couple in her Normandy peasant dress, 
with its beautiful old laces and gold ornaments, 
looking straight before her, as she took the arm 
of her grandfather, the old farmer from Tracy. 

Besides all these grown-up people there comes 
occasionally a little flying squadron of boys and 



girls, rushing along, tumbling down, shouting 
and screaming at the pitch of their voices, to the 
scandal of the other children who are better 
brought up, and who are soberly trotting in 
their small bourrelets, and bibs and blouses, by 
the side of their fathers and mothers. The ba- 
bies are the solemnest and the funniest of all, 
as they stare at the sea and the company from 
their tight maillots or cocoons. 

The country folks meet, greet one another 
cheerfully, and part with signs and jokes; the 
bathers go on shouting and beating the water ; 
the lights dance. In the distance, across the 
sands, you see the figures walking leisurely 
homeward before the tide overtakes them ; the 
sky gleams whiter and whiter at the horizon, 
and bluer and more blue behind the arid grasses 
that fringe the overhanging edge of the cliffs. 

Four or five little boys come running up one 
by one, handkerchief- flying umbrella -bearer 
ahead to the martial sound of a penny trumpet. 

The little captain pursues them breathless 
and exhausted, brandishing his sword in an 
agony of command. "Soldat3,"he says, ad- 
dressing his refractory troops, "soldats, souve- 
nez-vous qu'il ne faut jamais courrir. Soldats, 
ne courrez pas, je vous en prrrrie — une, deux, 
trois," and away they march to the relief of a 
sand fort which is being attacked by the sea. 
And so the day goes on, and the children play 

Among the waste nnd lumber of the shore. 
H.ird coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, 
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn ; 

and while they build "their castles of dissolv- 
ing sand to watch them overflow," the air, and 
the sounds, and the colors in which all these 
people are moving seem to grow clearer and 
clearer ; you can see the country people clam- 
bering the cliffs behind the village, and hear the 
voices and the laughter of the groups assembled 
on the embanked market-place. And mean- 
while M. le Maire and the Englishman are 
walking slowly along the sands toward Tracy, 
with long grotesque shadows lengthening as the 
sun begins to set. 

"I hope you will revisit our little town be- 
fore long," M. Fontaine was politely remarking 
to his companion. "I hear that you start to- 
morrow, and that Madame de Tracy accompa- 
nies )'0U." 

"My aunt declares she can not possibly go 
alone," said the Englishman, shrugging his 
shoulders, and speaking in very good French for 
an Englishman, " or I should have been, glad 
to stay another week. " 

"You have not yet visited the oyster-park at 
Courseulles," said M. le Maire, looking con- 
cerned. " It is a pity that you depart so soon." 

"I am veiy unfortunate to miss such a 
chance," said the Englishman, smiling. 

The Maire of Petitport seemed to think this 
a most natural regret. " Courseulles is a deep- 
ly interesting spot," he said. " Strangers trav- 
el from far to visit it. You have nothing of 
the sort in your country, I believe. You would 
see the education of the oyster there brought to 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIiF. 



its highest point of perfection. They are most 
intelligent animals, I am assured; one would 
not have imagined it. You would see them 
sorted out according to size, in commodious 
tanks. Every variety is there — from enormous 
patriarchal oysters to little baby ones, mi maillot, 
I may say. The returns are enormous, I be- 
lieve. And then you have such a fine air at 
Courseulles; magnificent plains — a vast hori- 
zon — no ti-ees, nothing to interrupt the coup- 
d'ceil. The effect of the moon shining on the 
marshes and the establishment is really strik- 
ing." 

"I think old Chretien has a share in the con- 
cern," said the Englishman. 

"Mademoiselle Eeine and her grandfather 
are very reserved upon the subject, and I have 
never been able to ascertain exactly what their 
yearly percentage amounts to," said Fontaine, 
confidentially holding up one thin hand. " I 
know that she drives over once a month in her 
spring-cart to superintend the affairs. She is a 
person, as you are aware, of great method and 
order; and, indeed, in affairs, it is absolutely 



" She seems to manage the farm very fairly," 
said the other. " Old Chretien is a stupid old 
fellow, always drinking cider ; he don't seem to 
do much else." 

"Alas! no, "replied Fontaine. "Hook upon 
drunkenness as a real misfortune. He has told 
me in confidence that he can not exist without 
the stimulant of cider. Even Mademoiselle 
Reine can not persuade him to abandon it." 

"I can not imagine any body having any dif- 
ficulty in refraining from cider," said the other, 
smiling again. " She was good to give me some 
the other day, with soupe aux choux; and I 



" Comment, Monsieur Butler ! You do not 
like our cider ?" said the maire, looking quite 
surprised. "It is because you have the taste 
of your '■potter' still in your mouth. Come back 
to us, and I promise to convert you." 

"Very well, that is a bargain," said Butler, 
looking about him a little distractedly. Ma- 
dame Pe'lottier, who happened to be passing, 
imagined that he was admiring her elegance. 
She drew herself up, stuck out her fore finger, 
and bowed. The maire, with a brisk glissade, 
returned the salute. 

"I sometimes ask," Fontaine remarked, as 
he replaced his curly-rimmed hat, " how that ex- 
cellent fellow, Pelottier, can have married him- 
self with that monstrous person. She brought 
him, it is true, an excellent dot and a good con- 
nection at Caen, also at Bayeux ; but in his 
place nothing would have persuaded me to unite 
myself with a young lady so disgracious and ill- 
brought-up." 

" Then you have thought of marrying again ?" 
asked Butler, glancing at the spruce figure be- 
side him. 

The maire looked conscious, and buttoned his 
eoat. " I once contemplated some proposals," 
he said, "to a person who was well off, and 



who might have made an amiable mother to my 
child, but the affair came to nothing. I do not 
mind telling you it was Mademoiselle Chre'tien 
herself that I had in view. After all, why 
should I marry ? Hein ? My good mother 
takes care of my little son ; my father-in-law is 
much attached to him ; I have an excellent cui- 
siniere, entirely devoted to our family — you know 
Justine ? Sometimes," said M. Fontaine, gaz- 
ing at the sea, "a vague feeling comes over me 
that if I could find a suitable person, life might 
appear less monotonous, more interesting. I 
should feel more gay, in better spirits, with the 
society of an agreeable companion. These are 
mere reveries, the emotions of a poetic imagina- 
tion ; for where am I to find the person ?" 

"Is there much difficulty?" said Butler, 
amused. 

"I do not generally mention it, but I do not 
mind telling you," said M. le Maire, "that our 
family, through misfortunes— by the stupidity 
of some, the ill conduct of others — no longer 
holds the place in society to which it is entitled. 
But I do not forget that I belong to an ancient 
race. I would wish for a certain refinement in 
my future companion which I can not discover 
among the ladies of the vicinity. There is noth- 
ing to suit me at Bayeux ; at Caen I may possi- 
bly discover what 1 require. I shall certainly 
make inquiries on my next visit." 

" And so you did not arrange matters with 
Mademoiselle Reine?" said the Englishman. 

"Steps were taken," M.Fontaine replied, 
mysteriously nodding his head, " but without 
any result. I, for one, do not regret it. With 
all her excellent qualities and her good blood 
• — her mother was of a noble house, we all know 
— there is a certain abruptness — in a word. 
Mademoiselle Reine is somewhat bourgeoise in 
her manner, and I am not sorry that the transac- 
tion fell through. Old Pere Chre'tien required 
me to produce a sum out of all reason. Nei- 
ther he nor Mademoiselle Reine were in the 
least accomodating — Ha, Madame Michaud — 
Madame !" a bow, a flourish of the Panama to a 
stout old lady with a clean cap and a parasol. 
The maire had held Butler fast for the last hour, 
and might have gone on chattering indefinitely, 
if the Englishman, seeing him involved with his 
new friend, had not pulled out his watch and 
escaped, saying he must go home. The maire 
took a disconsolate leave. Nemesis, in the 
shape of Madame Michaud, with some wrongs 
and a great deal to say about them, had over- 
taken Monsieur le Maire and held him fast pris- 
oner, while Richard Butler marched off with 
that odd sauntering walk of his, and made the 
best of his way to the chateau. 

He tramped along the foot of the cliff, crunch- 
ing over sea-weed, and stones, and mussel-shells. 
He passed old Nanette Lefebvre trimming her 
nets, sitting in a heap on the sand, with her 
bare legs in huge wooden sabots, and her petti- 
coats tucked up. Though it was a fete-day, 
the old fish-wife could not afford to miss her 
chance of a bonne aubaine. "J'allons mettre 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



mes filets a la basse maree," said Nanon, quite 
contented. " Jevous souhaite le bonso'ir, nion 
petit monsieur." Mr. Hook might have made 
a pretty sketch of the old brown face with the 
shrewd black eyes, and the white coif, of the 
crisp rocks, the blue sea, and the tattered striped 
petticoat. A peculiar brightness and clearness 
of atmosphere is like a varnish to the live pic- 
tures one meets with at every turn on the shores 
yonder. The colors are fainter and brighter 
than in England, the backgrounds lie flat, undi- 
versified, scantily broken by trees, but the fig- 
ures stand out in pale relief, with a grace, an 
unconscious pastoral sentiment which is almost 
unknown among us. Have we not outgrown 
the charm of tradition, old songs and saws, and 
ways and appliances, national dress, and simple 
country life ? Faded, battered wire bonnets ; 
vulgarity, millinery, affectation, parasols, crino- 
lines — it seems strange that such things should 
so surely supersede in time all the dear and 
touching relics of the by-going still life of our 
ancestors. Perhaps a day will come when the 
old charm will exorcise the land again, bi'inging 
back its songs and rural poetry, its grace and 
vanishing sentiment. 

It almost appears as if consciousness destroy- 
ed and blighted whatever it laid its fatal hand 
upon. We have all learned to love and admire 
art in our daily life, and to look for it here and 
there; but as we look, somehow, and as we ex- 
claim, Here or there behold it ! the fairies van- 
ish, the birds fly away, the tranquil silence is 
broken, the simple unconsciousness is gone for- 
ever, and you suddenly awake from your pleas- 
ant dream. A ruin inclosed by a wall and 
viewed with a ticket ; a model old woman in a 
sham rustic cottage at the park gate ; even the 
red cloaks of the village children which the lady 
at the hall brought down from Marshall and 
Snellgrove's, when she was in town last Tues- 
day — all these only become scenes in a panto- 
mime somehow. In these days, one is so used 
to sham and imitation, and Brummagem, that 
when by chance one comes to the real thing, it 
is hard to believe in it. At least so Butler 
thought as he trudged along. 

Presently he began to climb the cliff, and he 
reached the top at last with the great fields and 
the sea on either side, and the fresh breezes 
•blowing. He did not go into the village, but 
turned straight off and strode up the hill. He 
passed groups all along the road, resting or plod- 
ding through the dust. The west was all aglow 
with sunset, great ranges of cloud-mountains 
were coming from a distance and hanging over- 
head in the sky. He beheld fiery lakes, calm 
seas, wonderful countries. He could see land, 
and sky, and sea glowing for miles and miles in 
wreathing vapors of loveliest tint, and golden sun- 
floods. Butler trudged along, admiring, won- 
dering, and at the same time with his head full 
of one thing and another. 

He was loth enough to go, but there was no 
help for it. He had been in scrapes and troub- 
les at home, and had come away for a change, 



and now he felt he should get into a scrape if 
he staid, and they had sent for him home again. 
His uncle, Charles Butler, had paid his debts 
once more, and his uncle Hervey had written 
him a lofty and discursive epistle conveying his 
forgiveness, desiring him to come back to his 
work and his studio. His aunt, Madame de 
Tracy, announced that she would accompany 
him to England, spend a short time with her 
two brothers, and make the way smooth for her 
nephew. Madame de Ti-acy had but ten fin- 
gers, but if she had possessed twenty she would 
have wished to make use of each one of them in 
that culinary process to which the old proverb 
alludes. Her efforts had never been successful 
as far as Butler was concerned. 

Dick, as his friends call him, had been cursed 
with a facility for getting into scrapes all his 
lifetime. He had an odd fantastic mind, which 
had come to him no one knew how or why. 
He was sensitive, artistic, appreciative. He was 
vain and diffident; he was generous and self- 
ish ; he was warm-hearted, and yet he was too 
much a man of the world not to have been some- 
what tainted by its ways. Like other and bet- 
ter men, Dick's tastes were with the aristocracy, 
his sympathies with the people. He was not 
strong enough to carry out his own theories, 
though he could propound them very eloquent- 
ly, in a gentle drawling voice, not unpleasant 
to listen to. He w^s impressionable enough to 
be easily talked over and persuaded for a time, 
but there was with it all a fund of secret obsti- 
nacy and determination which would suddenly 
reassert itself, at inconvenient moments some- 
times. In that last scrape of his, Dick having 
first got deeply into debt, in a moment of aber- 
ration had proposed to a very plain but good-na- 
tured young lady with a great deal of money. 
He had made the offer at the instigation of his 
relations, and to quiet them and deliver himself 
from their persecutions, and he then behaved 
shamefully, as it is called, for he was no sooner 
accepted, to his surprise and consternation, than 
he wrote a very humble but explicit note to the 
heiress, telling her that the thing was impossi- 
ble. That she must forgive him if she could, 
but he felt that the mercenary motives wliich 
had induced him to come forward were so un- 
worthy of her and of himself, that the only 
course remaining to him was to confess his 
meanness and to throw himself upon her good- 
nature. Poor Dick! the storm which broke 
upon his curly head was a terrible one. He 
had fled in alarm. 

His curly head had stood him in stead of 
many a better quality ; his confidence and good 
manners had helped him out of many a well- 
deserved scrape, but he was certainly no sinewy 
hero, no giant, no Titan, like those who have 
lately revisited the eartli— (and the circulating 
libraries, to their very great advantage and im- 
provement). So far he was effeminate that he 
had great quickness of perception, that he was 
enthusiastic and self-indulgent, and shrunk 
from pain for himself or for others. He had 



10 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



been petted and spoiled in his youth, and he 
might have been a mere puppet and walking 
gentleman to this day, if it iiad not been for 
that possession, that odd little craze in his mind 
which seemed to bring him to life somehow, 
and force him into independence and self-deni 
al ; and Charles Butler, liis eldest uncle, used 
to make jokes at him, or occasionally burst out 
in a fume when Dick gravely assured him he 
believed himself possessed, and unaccountable 
for his actions. But, for all his vexation, the 
old man could not resist tlie young fellow's 
handsome face, and his honest, unaffected ways, 
and his cleverness, and his droll conceit, and 
humility, and grateful ingratitude, so to speak. 
His scrapes, after all, were thoughtless, not 
wicked ones, and so old Butler paid and paid, 
and preached a little, and jibed a great deal, 
and offered him regular employment, but Dick 
would not be regularly employed, would not be 
helped, would not be made angry ; it seemed 
all in vain to try to influence him. 

"If your pictures were worth the canvas," 
the old man would say, "I should be only too 
thankful to see you so harmlessly occupied ; but 
what is this violet female biting an oranj^e, and 
standing with her toes turned in and her elbows 
turned out? P. R. B's. I have no patience 
with the nonsense. Fray, were Sir Joshua, 
and Lawrence, and Gainsborough, and Romney 
before Raphael or after? arid could they paint 
a pretty woman, or could they not?" 

" They could paint in their way^" Dick would 
answer, twirling his mustache, "and I, proba- 
bly, can appreciate them better than you can, 
sir. You haven't read my article in the Art 
RevieiD, I see." And then the two would talk 
away at one another for an hour or more. It 
all ended in Dick going his own way, wasting 
his time, throwing away opportunities, picking 
up shreds that he seemed to have thrown away, 
making friends wherever he went with the chil- 
dren of lijiht or of darkness, as the case mig'htbe. 
As Dick walked along the high road to Tracy 
this afternoon, he replied to one greeting and 
another : good-humored-looking women, step- 
ping out by their men-companions, grinned and 
nodded to him as they passed on ; children trot- 
ting along the road cried out " Bon-soir" in the 
true Normandy sing-song. Butler occasionally- 
interrupted his somewhat remorseful medita- 
tions to reply to them. "What a fool he was !" 
he was thinking. Alas ! this is often what people 
are thinking as they walk for a little way alone 
along the high road of life. How he had wasted 
his youth, his time, his chances. Here he was, 
at eight-and-twenty, a loiterer in the race. He 
had tried hard enough at times, but life had 
gone wrong with him somehow. ' ' Why was he 
always in trouble?" poor Butler asked liimself; 
" dissatisfied, out of pocket and temper ? Why 
was he unhappy now when matters were begin- 
ning to brighten, and one more chance offered 
itself for him to retrieve the past ?" He had a 
terror lest the future should only be a repetition 
of times gone by — thoughtless imprudence, idle- 



ness, recklessness. He thought if he could turn 
his back upon it all, and take up a new life un- 
der another name, he would be well content — 
if he could put on a blouse and dig in the fields 
like these sunburnt fellows, and forget all cares, 
and anxieties, and perplexities in hard physical 
labor and fatigue. A foolish, passionate long- 
ing for the simpler forms of life had come over 
him of late. He was sick of cities, of men, of 
fine ladies, of unsuccessful efforts, of constant 
disappointment and failure. He was tired of 
being tired, and of the problems of daily life 
which haunted and perplexed him. Here, per- 
haps, he might be at peace, living from day to 
day, and from hour to hour. 

And yet he felt that the best and truest part 
of him, such as it was, was given to his art, and 
that he would sacrifice every thing, every hope 
for better things, if he sacrificed to weariness, to 
laziness — to a fancy — what he would not give up 
for expediency and success. He was no genius, 
he could not look for any brilliant future ; he 
was discouraged and out of heart. He blinked 
with his short-sighted eyes across the country 
toward a hollow far ayvaj, where a farmstead 
was nestling ; he could see the tall roof gleam- 
ing among the trees and the stacks. How loth 
he was to go. He imagined himself driving cat- 
tle to market along the dusty roads ; bargain- 
ing, hiring laborers, digging drains, tossing hay 
into carts ; training fruit-trees, working in the 
fields. It was an absurdity, and Butler sighed, 
for he knew it was absurd. He must go whether 
he would or not ; he had seen the last of the place 
and the ])eople in it ; he had tasted of the fruit of 
the tree of good and of evil ; it was too late ; he 
could not be Adam living with his Eve in the 
Garden of Eden. It was a garden full of ap- 
ples, bounteous, fruitful, which was spread out 
before him, stretching from the lilac hills all 
down to the sea, but it was not the Garden of 
Eden. Had Eve bright, quick brown eyes, But- 
ler wondered ? did she come and go busily ? did 
she make ciders and salads, and light fires of 
dried sticks in the evenings? Did she careful- 
ly pick up the fruit that fell to the ground and 
store it away ? did she pull flowers to decorate 
her bower with, and feed the young heifers with 
leaves out of her hand ? Did she scatter grain 
for the fowls of the air? did she call all the ani- 
mals by their names, and fondle them with her' 
pretty slim fingers? did she, when they had been 
turned out of Paradise, weave garments for her- 
self and for Adam with a spinning-wheel, as 
Butler had seen the women use in these parts ? 
Had she a sweet odd voice, with a sort of chord 
in it ? Dick sighed again, and walked on quick- 
ly, watching a great cloud-ship high overhead. 
And as he walked, writing his cares with his 
footsteps on the dust, as Carlyle says somewhere, 
a cart which had been jolting uj) the hill -side 
passed him on the road. 

It was full of country people : a young man 
with a flower stuck into his cap was driving, 
an old man was sitting beside him. Inside the 
cart were three women and some children. One 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



11 



little fellow was leaning right over, blowing a 
big trumpet and holding a flag. The other 
children were waving branches and pulling at a 
garland of vine-leaves, of which one end was 
dragging ; baskets were slung to the shaft be- 
low ; two dogs were following and bai-king ; 
while the people in the cart were chanting a 
sort of chorus as they went jolting along the road. 

They sang while the children waved their 
branches in accompaniment. It looked like a 
christening party, with the white ribbons and 
flowers. One of the young women held a little 
white baby in her arms ; another sat as if she 
was in a boat, holding fast a pretty little curly- 
headed girl, while the other arm dropped loose- 
ly over the side. 

As the cart jogged past him, the children 
recognized Butler, who was well known to them, 
and they began to call to him and to wave their 
toys to attract his attention. The two men took 
off their caps, the women nodded, and went on 
singing ; all except the young woman who had 
been leaning back — she looked up, smiled, and 
made the little girl next her kiss her hand to the 
wayfarer. 

"Good-by, Keine," said Butler, in English, 
starting forward. "I'm going to-morrow." 

Reine, jogging away, did not seem to under- 
stand what he said. She stretched out her long 
neck, half turned to the others, then looked back 
again at Dick. The other two women did not 
heed her, but went on shrilly chanting — 
Si le chemin nous ennuie 
L'un a I'autre nous boirons ! 

And a second verse — 

Voici tons gens de courage 
Lesquels s'en vont en voyage 
Jusque par-de-Iii des monts 
Faire ce pelerinage. 
Toua boire nous ne pouvons. 

Que la bouteille on n'oublie. 

En regrettant Norniandie, 

En regrettant .... 

went the chorus, with the men's voices joining 
in. There was at sudden decline in the hill, 
and the horses that had been going slowly be- 
fore set off at a trot. Reine was still leaning 
back and looking after Butler. Dick never turn- 
ed his head as he walked quietly on toward 
Tracy. It seemed to him as if the sun had set 
suddenly, and that a cold east wind was coming 
up from the sea. 

The cart jogged off toward the farmstead 
which Dick had seen nestling among the trees 
— Dick went on his road through the growing 
dusk. About half an hour later, Madame Mi- 
chaud, belated and in a great hurry, drove past 
him in her little open gig ; she pulled up, how- 
ever, to offer him a lift, which Butler declined 
with thanks. 

The road makes a sudden turn about a mile 
before you reach the chateau, and Dick could 
perceive the glow of the windows of the old 
place already beginning to light up. He could 
also see a distant speck of light in the plain, 
shining through darker shadow. Had Reine 
reached home, he wondered? was that the flare 
of the Colza blaze through tlie open door of the 



dwelling, or the lamp placed in the window as a 
signal to Dominic and her grandfather that the 
supper was ready? "It is as well I am go- 
ing to-morrow," Butler ruefully thought once 
more. 

It was almost dark by the time he reached 
the iron gate of the Chateau de Tracy, where 
his dinner was cooking, and his French rela- 
tions were awaiting his return. They were sit- 
ting out — dusky forms of aunts and cousins — on 
chairs and benches, upon the terrace in front of 
the old place, enjoying the evening breeze, fresh 
though it was. English people would have hud- 
dled into cloaks and bonnets, or gathered round 
close up to the wood-fire in the gi-eat bare saloon 
on a night like this ; but French people are less 
cautious and chilly than we are, and indeed there 
are no insidious damps lurking in the keen dry 
atmosphere of Normandy, no hidden dangers to 
fear as with us. To-night the mansai'de win- 
dows in the high roof, the little narrow windows 
in the turret, and many of the shuttered case- 
ments down below were lighted up brightly. 
The old house looked more cheerful than in the 
daytime, when to English eyes a certain mouldi- 
ness and neglect seemed to hang about the place. 
Persons passing by at niglit, when the lamps 
were lighted, travelers in the diligence from Ba- 
yeux, and other wayfarers sometimes noticed 
the old chateau blazing by the roadside, and 
speculated dimly — as people do when they see 
signs of an unknown life — as to what sort of 
people were living, what sort of a history was 
passing, behind the gray walls. There would 
be voices on the terrace, music coming from the 
open windows. The servants clustering round 
the gates, after their work was over, would greet 
the drivers of the passing vehicles. As the dil- 
igence pulled up, something would be handed 
down, or some one would get out of the interior, 
and vanish into this unknown existence — the 
cheerful voices would exchange good -nights. 
. . . When Richard Butler first came h'e ar- 
rived by this very Bayeux diligence, and he was 
interested and amused as he would have been 
by a scene at the play. 

It was by this same Bayeux diligence that he 
started early the next morning after his walk 
along the cliff. Madame de Tracy, who always 
wanted other people to alter their plans sudden- 
ly at the last moment, and for no particular rea- 
son, had endeavored to persuade her nephew to 
put off his departure for twenty-four hours. But 
Dick was uneasy, and anxious to be off. He had 
made up his mind that it was best to go, and 
this waiting about and lingering was miserable 
work. Besides, he had received a letter from a 
friend, who was looking out for him at a certain 
shabby little hotel at Caen, well known to them 
both. Dick told his aunt that he would stay 
there and wait until she came the next day, but 
that he should leave Tracy by the first diligence 
in the morning; and for once he spoke as if ho 
meant what he said. 

And so it was settled, and Richard packed up 
his picture overnight, and went off at seven 



12 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



o'clock, without his breakfast, in the rattling lit- 
tle diligence. An unexpected pleasure was in 
store for him. He found M. Fontaine already 
seated within it, tightly wedged between two 
farmers' wives, who were going to market with 
their big baskets and umbrellas, and their gold 
earrings and banded caps. M. le Maire was go- 
ing into Bayeux, " poiir affaire,'" he informed the 
company. But Richard Butler was silent, and 
little inclined for the conversation which M. Fon- 
taine tried to keep up as well as he could through 
the handles of the baskets with his English friend, 
with the other occupants of the vehicle, and with 
the ladies on his right and his left. He suited 
his subjects to liis auditory. He asked Madame 
Nicholas if she was going to the fair at Creuil- 
ly, and if she had reason to believe that there 
would be as much amusement there this year as 
the last. He talked to Madame Binaud of the 
concert in the church the week before, and of 
the sum which M. le Cure' had cleared by the 
entertainment. To Dick he observed, in allu- 
sioVi to his intended journey, "What a wonder- 
ful power is le steam! You can, if you choose, 
dine at Paris to-night, and breakfast in London 
to-morrow morning. What should we do," ask- 
ed Fontaine, "without the aid of this useful 
and surprising invention ?" 

"Eh bien! moi qui vous parle, Monsieur le 
Maire, "said Madame Binaud; "I have never 
yet been in one of tliose machines a vajieur, nor 
do I ever desire to go. Binaud, he went up to 
Paris last harvest-time, and he came back, sure 
enough. But I don't like them," said Madame 
Binaud, shaking her head, and showing her 
white teeth. 

Madame Binaud was a Conservative. She 
was very stout, and wore a high cap with big 
flaps that were somewhat out of date. Madame 
Nicholas was a bright, lively little woman, with 
a great store of peaches in her basket, a crino- 
line, a Paris cap, and all the latest innovations. 

Tliey went on slowly climbing the hill for 
some time, and as they turned a corner, Dick 
caught one more sight of Petitport, all white 
against the blue sea, and very distinct in the 
early morning light. Then the diligence rolled 
on more quickly, and the gi'eat towers of Ba- 
yeux Cathedral came rising across the plain. 
Butler looked back again and again, but he 
could see the village no moi-e. What was the 
charm wliich attracted him so strangely to the 
poor little place ? he asked himself. Did he 
love the country for its own sake, or only for 
the sake of the people he left there ? But the 
diligence was banging and rattling over the 
Bayeux stones by this time, and it was no use 
asking himself any more questions. 

"Monsieur," solemnly said Madame Binaud, 
as she and her friend prepared to get down, 
"je vous souhaite un bon voyage." 

"Bon jour, messieurs!" said Madame Nich- 
olas, cheerfully, while M. Fontaine carefully 
handed out the ladies' baskets and umbrellas, 
and a pair of sabots belonging to Madame Bi- 
naud. 



The maire himself descended at the banker's. 
It was an old-fashioned porte-cochere, leading 
into a sunny, deserted court-yard. M. Fontaine 
stood in the doorway. He was collecting his 
mind for one last parting effort. "My dear 
fren' ! good voyage," he said in English, wav- 
ing his Panama, as Dick drove off to the station. 

M. Fontaine accomplished his business, and 
jogged back to Petitport in the diligence that 
evening, once more in company with Madame 
Binaud, and Madame Nicholas, who had dis- 
posed of her peaches. 

"II est gentil, le petit Monsieur Anglais," 
said Madame Nicholas. "Anglais, Allemand; 
c'est la meme chose, n'est-ce pas. Monsieur 
Fontaine ?" 

"Not at all, not at all; the nations are en- 
tirely distinct," says Fontaine, delighted to have 
an opportunity of exhibiting his varied informa- 
tion before the passengers. 

" I sliould like to know where he has got to 
by this time," said Madame Binaud, solemnly 
nodding her stupid old head. 

Dick is only a very little way off, sitting upon 
a pile, and saying farewell for a time to the 
country he loves. "Adieu, charmant pays de 
France," he is whistling somewhat dolefully. 

There is a river, and some people are sitting 
on some logs of wood which have been left lying 
along the embankment, there is a dying sun- 
streak in the west, and the stars are quietly 
brightening overhead. 

The water reflects the sunstreak and the 
keels of the ships which are moored to the quai. 
Beyond the quai the river flows across a plain, 
through gray and twilight mystery toward Paris 
with its domes and triumphal arches miles and 
miles away. Here, against the golden-vaulted 
background, crowd masts, and spires, and gable- 
roofs like those of a goblin city, and casements 
from which the lights of the old town are begin- 
ning to shine and to be reflepted in the water. 

The old town whose lights are kindling is 
Caen, in Normandy. The people who are sit- 
ting on the logs are some country folks, and two 
English travelers who have strolled out with 
their cigars after dinner. 

It seems a favorite hour with the Caennois; 
many townsfolk are out and about. They have 
done their day's work, their suppers are getting 
ready by the gleaming gable lights, and before 
going in to eat, to rest, to sleep, they come to 
breathe the cool air, to look at the shipping, to 
peer down into the dark waters, and to stroll 
under the trees of the Cours. The avenues 
gloom damp, and dark, and vaporous in the 
twilight, but one can imagine some natures lik- 
ing to walk under trees at night and to listen to 
the dreary chirping of the crickets. For En- 
glish people who have trees and shady groves at 
home, there are other things to do at Caen be- 
sides strolling along the dark Cours. There 
are the quais, and the quaint old courts and 
open squares, and tlie busy old streets all alight 
and full of life. They go climbing, descending, 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



13 



ascending with gables and corners, where shrines 
are and turrets with weather-cocks, and bits of 
rag hanging from upper windows ; carved lin- 
tels, heads peeping from the high casements, 
voices calling, pigeons flying and perching, flow- 
ers hanging from topmost stories, and then over 
all these the upward spires and the ivy-grown 
towers of the old castle standing on the hill, | 
and down below crumbling Roman walls and 
green moats all luxuriant with autumn gar- 
lands. All day long the bright Norman sky 
had been shining upon the gardens and hill- 
sides, and between the carved stones, and para- 
pets, and high roofs of the city. 

Richard Butler had been wandering about 
all the afternoon in this pleasant confusion of 
sight, and sound, and bright color. He had 
missed the friend he expected to meet, but this 
did not greatly aff'ect him, for he knew he would 
turn up that night at khe hotel — at the table- 
d'hote most likely; and, in the mean time, 
wandering round and about, stopping at every 
corner, looking into every church, noting the 
bright pictures, framed as it were in the arches, 
staring up at the gables, at the quaint wares in 
the shops ; making mental notes of one kind 
and another, which might be useful some day — 
he had spent a tranquil solitary afternoon. He 
had seen a score of subjects : once, sitting on a 
bench in one of the churches, a side door had 
opened, and with a sudden flood of light from 
a green court-yard outside, an old bent wom- 
an came in, carrying great bunches of flowers. 
She came slowly out of the sunlight, and went 
with dragging step to the altar of the beautiful 
white Virgin where the tapers were burning. 
And then she placed the flowers on the altar 
and crept away. Here was a subject, Butler 
thought, and he tried to discover why it affected 
him ? A pretty young girl tripping in, blush- 
ing with her offering and her petition, would 
not have touched him as did the sight of this 
lonely and aged woman, coming sadly along 
with her fresh wreaths and nosegays. Poor 
soul! what can she have to pray for? "Her 
flowers should be withered immortelles," he 
thought, but the combinations of real life do 
not pose for effect, and the simple, natural in- 
congruities of every day are more harmonious 
than any compositions or allusions, no matter 
how elaborate. Butler thought of Uhland's 
chaplet, " Es pfliickte bliimlein mannigfalt," 
and taking out his note-book he wrote down, 

" Old people's petitions, St. G. 4 o'clock. Of- 
fering up flowers, old woman blue petticoat, 
white stripe. Pointed Gothic doorway, light 
from 1 to r through Red St. glass. Uhland." 

The next place into which he strolled was a 
deserted little court of exchange, silent and ten- 
antless, though the great busy street rolled by 
only a few score yards away. There were stat- 
ues in florid niches, windows behind, a wonder 
of carved stonework, of pillars, of polished stems 
and brackets. It was a silent little nook, with 
the deep sky shining overhead, and the great 
black shadows striking and marking out the love- 



ly ornaments which patient hands had cai-ved 
and traced upon the stone. It was all very sym- 
pathetic and resting to his mind. It was like 
the conversation of a friend, who sometimes 
listens, sometimes discourses, saying all sorts of 
pleasant things ; suggesting, turning your own 
dull and wearied thoughts into new ideas, bright- 
ening as you brighten, interesting you, leading 
you away from the worn-out old dangerous paths 
where you were stumbling and struggling, and 
up and down which you had been wandering as 
if bewitched. 

Dick went back to the table-d'hote at five 
o'clock, and desired the waiter to keep a vacant 
seat beside him. Before the soupe had been 
handed round, another young man, not unlike 
Dick in manner, but taller and better looking, 
came strolling in, and with a nod and a smile, 
and a shake of the hand, sat down beside him. 

"Where have you been ?" said Dick. 

"Looking for you," said the other. "Brit- 
tany — that sort of thing. Have you got on with 
your picture?" 

" Yes," Butler answered, •• finished it and be- 
gun another. You know I'm on my way home. 
Better come too, Beamish, and help me to look 
after all my aunt's boxes." 

"Which aunt's boxes?" said Beamish, eager- 

" Not Mrs. Butler's," Dick answered, smiling. 
" But Catharine is flourishing — at least she was 
looking very pretty when I came away, and 
will, I have no doubt, be very glad to see me 
again." 

And then, when dinner was over, and the 
odd-looking British couples had retired to their 
rooms, the two young men lighted their cigars, 
and strolled out across the Place together, went 
out and sat upon the log, until quite late at 
night, talking and smoking together in the quiet 
and darkness. 



CHAPTER n. 



THE TWO CATHARINES. 



There are some things dull, and shabby, and 
uninteresting to one person, which to another 
are all shining with a mysterious light and 
glamour of their own. A dingy London hall, 
with some -hats on pegs, a broad staircase with 
a faded blue and yellow Turkey carpet, occa- 
sionally a gloomy echoing of distant plates, and 
unseen pots and pans in the kitchens below ; a 
drawing-room up above, the piano which gives 
out the usual tunes over and over again, like a 
musical snuff-box; the sofa, the table, the side- 
table, the paper-cutter, the Edinhirgh, and the 
Cornhill, and the Saturday Review ; the usual 
mamma, with her lace cap, sitting on the sofa, 
the othej lady at the writing-table, the young 
man just going away standing by the fireplace, 
the two young ladies sitting in the window with 
waves of crinoline and their heads dressed. 
The people outside the window passing, repass- 



14 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



ing, and driving through Eaton Square, the dis- 1 
tant, unnoticed drone of an organ, the steeple , 
of St. Peter's Church. This one spot, so dull, I 
so strange to Madame de Tracy after her own 
pleasant green pastures, so like a thousand oth- 
ers to a thousand other people, was so unlike to 
one poor little person I know of ; its charm was 
so strange and so powerful that she could scarce- 
ly trust herself to think of it at one time. In 
after years she turned from the remembrance 
with a constant pain and effort, until at last by 
degrees the charm traveled elsewhere, and the 
sunlight lit up other places. 

My little person is only Miss George, a poor 
little twenty-year-old governess, part worried, 
part puzzled, part sad, and part happy too, for 
mere youth and good spirits. You can see it 
all in her round face, which brightens, changes, 
smiles, and saddens many times a day. She 
catches glimpses of the Paradise I have been de- 
scribing as she runs up and down stairs in pur- 
suit of naughty, refractory Augusta, or dilatory 
little Sarah, or careless Lydia, who has lost her 
lesson, and her pi«afore, and her pocket-hand- 
kerchief, or of Algy, whose life hangs by a 
leather strap as he slides up and down the pre- 
cipitous banisters, and suspends himself from 
the landing by various contrivances of liis own. 
"What a noise those children are making," 
says the aunt, looking up from her letter to the 
mamma in the drawing-room. The young 
man shuts the door as the little person goes 
past flying after Algy ; she captures him and 
brings him back, a sulky little prisoner, to the 
school-room on the stairs, where she herself, 
under the grand-sounding title of "governess," 
is a prisoner too. In this Domestic Bastile, 
with its ground-glass windows, from which es- 
cape is impossible — for they look into the areas 
deep down below, and into mews where there are 
horses and coachmen constantly passing — all t'.ie 
ancient terrors and appliances are kept up. Sol- 
itary confinement, the Question by Torture (Pin- 
nock, Mangnall, etc., are the names given by the 
executioners to the various instruments). The 
thumb-screw stands in one corner of the room, 
with a stool which turns round and round, ac- 
cording to the length of the performer's legs ; a 
registry is kept of secret marks where the vari- 
ous crimes and offenses are noted down. Heavy 
fines are supposed to be levied ; utter silence 
and implicit obedience are requested. But all 
this is only in theory after all ; the prisoners have 
conspired, mutinied, and carried every thing be- 
fore them since Miss George's dominion set in. 
She presides in her official chair by the ta- 
ble, with her work in her hand, looking very 
blight and pretty, and not in the least like a 
governess. All the things about her look like 
a school-room — the walls, and the maps, and 
the diugget, and the crumpled chintz. There 
are a few brown-paper books in the gases, and 
there is a worn-out table-cover on the table, 
and a blotted ink-stand. There are blots every 
where, indeed, inside the books, on the chairs, 
under the table, on the ceiling, where ingenious 



Algy, with a squirt, has been able to write his 
initials and those of Miss Cornelia Bouchon, a 
former governess ; there are blots on the chil- 
dren's fingers and elbows, and on Sarah's nose, 
and all over Augusta's exercise; only Miss 
George seems free from the prevailing epidemic. 
There she sits, poor little soul ! round-faced, 
dark-eyed ; laughing sometimes, and scolding 
at others ; looking quite desperate very often, 
as her appealing glances are now cast at Algy, 
now at Augusta or Lydia, as the case may be. 
Little Sarah is always good and gives no trou- 
ble ; but the other three are silly children, and 
tiresome occasionally. The governess is very 
young and silly, too, for her age, and quite un- 
fitted for her situation. To-day the children 
are especially lively and difficult to deal with. 
An aunt arriving in a cab, with a French maid 
with tall gray boxes ; with chocolate in her 
bag ; with frizz curls* and French boots, and 
a funny-looking bonnet ; welcomings, enibra- 
cings, expeditions proposed ; Dick with. a bag 
slung across his shoulder ; the spare room made 
ready, a dinner-party to-morrow, the play on 
Thursday, Augusta and Lydia to appear at 
breakfast in their afternoon dresses — (so Streat- 
ton, their mother's maid, had decreed) : all 
this is quite enough to excite such very excita- 
ble young people. Algy nearly dislocates ev- 
ery joint in his body ; Augusta reads her his- 
tory in a loud, drawling voice, without paying 
attention to the stops, and longs to be grown up 
like Catharine and Georgie. Lydia ponders on 
her aunt's attire, and composes rich toilets in 
the air for herself, such as she should like to 
wear if she were married, and a French count- 
ess like her aunt Matilda. Sarah nibbles her 
chocolate and learns her poetry distractedly ; 
even Miss George finds it difficult to keep up 
her interest in the battle of Tewkesbury which 
happened so many years ago, when all sorts 
of exciting things are going on at that A'ery 
instant, perhaps, just outside the school -room 
door. . . . 

There is a sound of rustling, of voices, of dis- 
cussion. Presently the mother's voice is raised 
above the rest. "Catharine, make haste; the 
horses are here," she calls. 

Miss George blushes up and says, with a little 
cough, "Go on, my dear Gussie." 

"Kitty," cries another voice, "don't forget 
to leave the note for Dick." 

And Miss George gives another little gulp. 
It is very foolish ; she does not know how fool- 
ish and how much she minds it, or I think she 
would try to struggle against the feeling. She, 
too, used to be called "Kitty," "Cathy," "Cath- 
arine, "once upon a time when she was seven- 
teen. But that was three years ago, and no 
one ever says any thing but "Miss George" 
now, excejjt Algy, who sometimes cries out, 
"Hullo, George, you have got another new 
bonnet !" Even that is better than being a 
" Miss" always, from one day's end to another, 
and from morning to night, poor little "George" 
thinks. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



15 



All day long, it seems to her, outside the 
school-room door she hears voices calling — fa- 
thers, mothers, brothers and sisters — 

"Catharine, the horses are here! Catha- 
rine, we are all waiting for you ! Catharine, 
some flowers have come for you!" 

As I have said, the school-room was on the 
drawing-room stairs, and the children and the 
governess could hear all that passed. It did 
seem a little hard sometimes that all the hajipi- 
ness and love, and all the fun and delight of life, 
and the hope, and the care, and the protection, 
should be for one Catharine — all the hard work, 
and the struggles, and loneliness, and friend- 
lessness for the other. Music, bright days, 
pleasant talk, sympathy, pearls, turquoises, flow- 
ers, pretty things, beautiful dresses, for one — 
only slate-pencils scratching, monotony, silence, 
rules, rulers, ink-blots, unsatisfied longings, ill- 
written exercises, copy-books, thumbed-out dic- 
tionaries, for the other. There are days when 
Miss George finds it Very hard to listen with 
lively interest to Augusta's reluctant account 
of the battle of Tewkesbury. The sun shines, 
the clock ticks, birds hop up on the window- 
ledge, pens scratch on the paper, people come 
and talk outside the door, every thing happens 
to distract. Thoughts come buzzing and fan- 
cies bewilder. 

" That is Mr. Beamish's voice," Lydia would 
say, picking up her ears. "How often he 
comes." 

"No, it is cousin Dick," said Augusta; "he 
is going to ride out with them. Oh, how I wish 
they would take me too." 

" Go on, my dear, with your reading," says 
the governess, sternly. 

"'She advanced through the counties of 
Devon, Somerset, and Gloucester, increasing 
her army on each day's march,'" says the lit- 
tle lectress, in a loud, disgusted voice; " 'each 
day's . . . but was at last overtaken by the 
rapid — the rapid and expeditious Edward — ' " 

" It is Mr. Beamish, Miss George," said Lyd- 
ia, complacently. 

" And tlien Mrs. Butler was heard through 
the keyhole, saying, "We must dine at six 
o'clock, and mind you bring Richard, M. Beam- 
ish. Tell him his aunt, Madame de Tracy, de- 
sires him to come." 

" Go on, my dear," says Miss George. 

" 'On the banks of the Severn,' " Augusta 
continues. And there the armies apparently 
come to a dead stop, for some one is heard to 
say something about "the children too." 

"Certainly not," replies the mother's voice, 
and so Gussie begins again in crestfallen tones : 

"'The Lancastrians were here totally de- 
feated. The Earl of Devonshire and Lord Wen- 
loc were killed on the field. The Duke of 
Somerset and about twenty other persons of 
distinction, having taken shelter in a chnrdh, 
were surrounded, dragged out, and immediately 
beheaded.'" 

"Miss George, have you ever seen an execu- 
tion ?" says Sarah. 



"/should like to see one," says Algy, in an 
off-hand way. " I shall get papa to take me, or 
cousin Dick. I'm sure he will, if I ask him." 

"You horrid children!" says Miss George; 
"how can you talk about such dreadful things. 
Please, dear Algy, do your sum, and don't draw 
blocks and heads. Go on, Augusta." 

" 'Queen Margaret and her son were taken 
prisoners,' " said Augusta, " ' and brought to the 
king, who asked the prince, after an insulting 
manner, how he dared to invade his dominions. 

"'The young prince, more mindful of his 
high birth than of his present fortune, replied 
that he came thither to claim his just inherit- 
ance ; the ungenerous Edward, insensible to pity, 
struck him on the face with his gauntlet' " — ' 
"Oh!" says Sarah, reproachfully — '"and the 
Dukes of Clarence and Glou — ' " But here the 
door opened, and instead of he'roic and unfortu- 
nate princes, of kings savage and remorseless, 
of wicked uncles and fierce bearded barons, and 
heart-broken and desperate queens, a beautiful 
young lady came into the room in a riding-habit, 
smiling, with her gold hair in a net. This was poor 
Catharine's shadow, her namesake, the happy 
Catharine, who haunted, and vexed, and charm- 
ed her all at once, who stood in the open door- 
way, with all the sunshine behind her, and who 
was saying it was her birthday, and- the little 
prisoners were to be set free. 

"You will be able to go and see your sisters. 
Miss George," Miss Butler says, smiling, for 
mamma is going to take the children out to lunch 
and for all the afternoon." 

"And where are you going to? tell me, tell 
me, Kitty, please tell me," says Augusta, flinging 
her arms round her. 

"I am going to ride in the park with papa, 
and Georgie, and Mr. Beamish," said Catharine, 
"and this afternoon aunt Matilda wants us to 
go to Sydenham with her." 

"What fun you do have, to be sure!" said 
Augusta, with a long groan. 

And then one of the voices as usual cries, 
"Catharine, Catharine," from below, and smil- 
ing once more, and nodding to them, the girl 
runs down stairs into the hall, where her father 
and the others are waiting, impatient to ride 
away into the bright summer parks. 

The children went off much excited half an 
hour later, Augusta chatteiing, Lydia bustling 
and consequential, and carrying a bag; Algy 
indulging -in various hops, jerks, and other gym- 
nastic signs of content ; Sarah saying little, but 
looking all round eyes and happiness. Lunch 
with their cousins — shopping with mamma — the 
Zoological Gardens — buns for the bears — nuts 
for the monkeys — there seemed to be no end of 
delights in store for them as they tripped down 
stairs all ribbon-ends and expectation. 

" Good-by, Miss George," cried Lydia. 

"Good -by, horrid school -room," said Au- 
gusta. 

" I do so like going out with mamma ! wish 
I always did," said little Sarah. 

The children were not unkind, but thev would 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIEF. 



have naturally preferred feeding monkeys to do- 
ing long-division sums with an angel from heaven, 
and poor Catharine, who was only a mortal after 
all, wrinkled up her eyebrows and sighed. But 
her momentary ill-humor was gone in an instant. 
From her place on the landing she heard the 



lightful liberty before her. It was all sunny and 
silent. The pots and pans down below were at 
rest, for once, and hanging quietly upon their 
pegs. The bedroom doors were open, the study 
was empty ; there was no one in the drawing- 
room when she looked in, only the sun beating 




start — the brief squabble with which children 
invariably set off — the bland maternal inter- 
ference .... 

The carriage - wheels rolled away, the door 
closed, and Catharine found herself all alone in 
a great empty house, with an afternoon of de- 



upon the blinds and pouring in through the con- 
servatory window. 

Catharine brought away a Tennyson and a 
Saturday Revieiv, and came back into the school- 
room again, and sat down upon the little shabby 
sofa. She was not long in making up her mind 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



17 



as to what she should do with her precious hours 
of liberty. Her two little sisters filled every spare 
thought and moment in Catharine's busy life, 
and her poor little heart yearfted toward the 
grim house in Kensington Square, with the five 
narrow windows, and the prim-looking wire- 
blinds, behind which Kosy and Totty's curly 
heads weie bobbing at work and at play, as the 
case might be. 

As Catharine waited, resting in the school- 
room for a few minutes, she thought, with one 
more envious sigh, how she wished that she, too, 
had a large open carriage to drive off in. She 
longed — it was silly enough — to be the happy, 
fortunate Catharine, instead of the hard-work- 
ing, neglected one. She thought how tired she 
was, and of the long, hot Kensington Eoad ; 
she thought of the other Catharine riding away 
through the Park, in her waving gray habit, 
under the bright green trees, with that kind, red- 
bearded Mr. Beamish curvetting beside her. It 
is only an every-day story — one little pig goes to 
market, another stays at home. One eats bread 
and butter, another has none, and cries squeak, 
squeak, squeak. The clock struck one mean- 
while. It was no use going oiF to her sisters until 
after their dinner ; luncheon was not ready yet, 
and Catharine threw herself down at full length 
upon the sofa, and opened the paper she had 
brought off the drawing-room table. In at the 
window some sweet sultry summer air came 
blowing through a smutty lilac-tree. There was 
a clinking of pails and heavy footsteps. She read 
the review of a novel, of a new book of poetry, 
and then she turned to an essay. It was some- 
thing about women and marrying, about feeble- 
ness and inaptitude, and missing their vocation ; 
about the just dislike of the world for the persons 
who could not conduce to its amusement or com- 
fort. Catjiarine pushed it away impatiently. 
She did not want to read in black and white 
what she knew so well already — what she had 
to read always in the black and white of day 
and of night — what with unconscious philoso- 
])hy she tried so hard to ignore. 

A poor little thing, just beginning life with 
all the worlds and dreams of early youth in her 
heart, chafing, and piteously holding out her soft 
little hands against the stern laws of existence. 
No w-onder she turned from the hard sentences. 
Any body seeing the childish face, the gentle lit- 
tle movements, the pretty little hands which had 
just flung the paper away, would have been 
sorry for her. Catharine did not look even her 
twenty years, for she was backward and scarcely 
full-grown. She looked too young and too 
childish, one might have thought, to be sent 
out by fate and respectable references into the 
world. One might have thought that she 
should have had older and wiser heads to think 
for her, kind hands to pull her out of difficulties, 
kind hearts to cherish her. She should have 
been alternately scolded and taken for treats, 
like the children ; sent to bed early, set lessons 
to learn — other than those hard ones which are 
taught with stripes, and learned onlv with pain- 
B 



ful effbrt. Thus, at least, it would have seemed 
to us small moralizers looking on from our fan- 
cy-ware repositories, where right and wrong, and 
oughts, and should-have-beens, are taken down 
from the shelf and measured out so liberally to 
supply the demand. . . . Half a yard of favor 
for this person — three quarters of trimming for 
that one — slashings let into one surtout of which 
we do not happen to fancy the color — or, instead 
of slashings, loopholes, perhaps, neatly inserted 
into another; blue ribbons, gold cords and tas- 
sels, and rope-ends — there is no end to our stock, 
and the things we dispense as we will upon our 
imaginary men and women : we give them out 
complacently and without hesitation, and we 
would fain bestow the same measure in like 
manner upon the living people we see all about 
us. But it is in vain we would measure out, dis- 
pense, approve, revoke. The fates roll on silent, 
immutable, carrying us and our various opinions 
along with them, and the oughts and shoulds, 
and praises and blamings, and the progress of 
events. 

There was a great deal of talking and discus- 
sion about little Catharine at one time — of course 
the family should have provided for the three 
girls ; her step-mother's relations ought to have 
adopted Catharine, since she had no relations of 
her own ; Mrs. Buckington was well-off; Lady 
Farebrother had more money than she knew 
what to do with ; but it all ended in the little 
step-sisters being put to school, and in Catha- 
rine obtaining an excellent situation through an 
advertisement in The Times. She got sixty 
pounds a year, and as she owned the interest of 
a thousand pounds besides, she was rich for a 
governess. But then she helped to pay for her 
sisters' schooling. She could not bear them to 
go to the cheap and retired establishment Lady 
Farebrother had suggested. The aunts did not 
insist when Catharine offered to pay the differ- 
ence. People said it was a shame, but only 
what might have been expected of such worldly, 
pusliing, disagreeable women as Mrs. Bucking- 
ton and her sister, and so the matter ended. 
And so little Catharine at nineteen set to work 
for herself. She came — a blushing, eager little 
thing — to a certain house in Eaton Square to 
earn her own living, to help those who were 
most dear to her, to teach Mrs. Butler's children 
a great maf^ things she had never learned her- 
self. What a strange new world it was ! of stir, 
of hard work, of thoughts and feelings undreamt 
of in the quiet old days, before she left her 
home ; running in the garden, playing with her 
little sister in the old wainscoted hall — only yes- 
terdaj', so it appeared — adoring her step-mother, 
being naughty sometimes, being loved and happy 
always — this was all her experience; so small, 
so even, so quiet, that it seemed as though it 
might have lasted for years to come ; instead of 
which now already all was over, and the tran- 
quil memories were haunting poor little Catha- 
rine as sadly as though they were of sorrow, of 
passion, of stirring events. 

She had staid in Eaton Place for a year and 



18 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



more, depending for subsistence on her own ex- 
ertions, for sympathy on a dream or two, for 
love, and home, and family on two little school- 
f^irls, whose pencil-notes she read over and over 
again on the many long days when she could 
not fly off to Mrs. Martingale's school in Ken- 
sington Square to see two little ugly girls, who 
would rush into the room and spring into her 
arms with as manyjumps of delight as Algy him- 
self. Catharine used to tell tiiem every thing, 
and depended upon them for advice and assist- 
ance in all her difficulties. She had a way of 
clinging to every support and outstretched hand 
which came in her road. She had lived too 
long with her step-mother not to have learned 
from her to trust and believe in every one who 
made any advance, or who seemed in the least 
inclined to be kind and helpful. If she had to 
pay for this credulity, it is hard to say what 
price would be too great to give for it, it is worth 
in itself so much. Time after time, when any 
one spoke by chance a few good-natured words, 
and seemed to ask with some small interest how 
she was, how her sisters were, how she liked Iier 
situation, and so forth, her foolish little heart 
would leap with gratitude. " Here is a friend 
indeed," she would think to herself; "I see it 
in her face, in his manner. Oli, how fortunate 
I am — how good people are." And then the 
good-natured person would go away and forget 
all about the little governess, unconscious of the 
bitter pang of longing disappointment he or she 
had inflicted. 

Meanwhile time went on : Catharine had 
worked very hard for many weeks, kept her 
temper, made the best of troublesome times, 
and struggled bravely in her small little feeble 
way, and she began to feel a little tired, as peo- 
])lc do sometimes, a little lonely and injured; 
she was not quite so simple, cheery, unconscious, 
as she had been when she first came, and the 
way in which people change and fail under vex- 
ation and worry has always seemed to me the 
saddest part of pain. The Butlers were very 
kind to her, but she lived by herself in the big 
busy house, and if she dreamed and longed for 
companionship and sympathy that might not be 
hers, one can not blame her very harshly. Cath- 
arine thought that it was because she was a gov- 
erness that such things were denied to her; she 
did not know then that to no one#-neither to 
governesses, nor pupils, nor parents — is that full 
and entire sympathy given for which so many 
people — women especially — go seeking all their 
lives long. 

For all this discouraging doctrine, a happy 
golden hour came to the little weary Catharine 
in her school-room this afternoon. 

The sympathetic friend who could rouse the 
downcast heart and understand its need, the 
mighty enchanter whose incantations could he- 
witch the wearied little spirit from every-day 
life and bondage, and set it free for a time, 
was at hand. Catharine opened the book she 
had brought, and immediately the spell began to 
work. She did not see herself, or her troubles, 



or the shaliby school-room walls any more, but 
suddenly tliere appeared King Artliur sitting 
high in hall, holding his court at Caerleon upon 
Usk. It was Prince Geraint Avho issued from a 
world of wood, and, climbing upon a fair and 
even ridge, a moment showed himself against 
the sky. It was the little town gleatning in the 
long valley, and the white fortress and the cas- 
tle in decay ; and presently in the dreary court- 
yard it was some one singing as the sweet voice 
of a bird — "Turn, fortune, turn thy wheel ; our 
hoard is little, but our hearts are great." Cath- 
arine read on, and Enid rode away all dressed 
in fiuled silk, and then Catharine went follow- 
ing too, through many a woodland pass, by 
swam]>s, and pools, and wilds, through dreamy 
castle halls, and out into the country once more, 
where phantom figures came and fell upon Ge- 
raint. False Doorm, and Edryn, wild Limours 
on his black horse, like the thunder-cloud whose 
skirts are loosened by the rising storm . . . The 
shadowy arms struck without sound, clashing 
in silence. Great fresh winds from a distance 
were blowing about the room ; the measured 
musical tramp of the rhythm was ringing in her 
ears ; there was a sort of odd dazzle of sunlight 
of martial strains very distant; the wheel of 
fortune was making a pumping noise in the 
court of the castle outside ; and in the midst of 
it all tiie door opened, and some one — it might 
have been Geraint — walked in. For a moment 
Catharine looked np, dreaming still. It only 
took an instant for her to be metamorphosed 
into a governess once more. 

"They are all gone out, Mr. Butler," she 
said. " Mr. and Miss Butler are riding to Caer- 
leon, but they will be back to lunch." 

Catharine, who had quite recovered her every- 
day composure, wondered why young Mr. But- 
lar smiled as he glanced at the little green vol- 
ume in her hand. He was not so good-looking 
a man as Prince Geraint — he was not so broad 
or so big ; he had fair curly hair, a straight 
nose, sleepy gray eyes, and a smart little mus- 
tache. He was dressed like a young man of 
fashion, witli a flower in his coat. 

" I am afraid I can't wait till they come 
in," Richard said. "Perhaps you would let 
them know that it is to-morrow, not Thursday, 
I want them to drink tea at my place, and the 
children too. Please tell them I shall be ex- 
cessively disappointed if any body fails me. 
Good-morning, Miss James," said Richard, af- 
fablv, "I see you are reading my book of 
Idylls." 

Butler ran down stairs, thinking as he went 
" Why do people ever choose ugly governesses r 
My aunt's Miss James is a little dear. Riding 
to Caerleon. She didn't know what she was 
saying. I should like to see my uncle Hervey 
accoutred as a knight of Arthur's round table. 
Poor old Hervey I" 

As for " Miss James," as Richard called her, 
she looked into the beginning of the book, and 
saw R. X. B., in three whirliiiig letters, all curl- 
ing up into one corner of the i)age. She blushed 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



up now all by herself. "I wish people would 
not speak to one in that affable, joking voice," 
she thought ; and she did not read any more, 
but went and put the book back on the drawing- 
room table, where it had been lying for months 
past. 

At luncheon she duly gave her message. 
Only Mr. Butler and his two daughters, hungry, 
blown about, cheerfully excited by their morn- 
ing's expedition, were present. 

Mr. Butler was the usual middle-aged En- 
glishman, with very square-toed boots and griz- 
zly whiskers. He was fond of active pursuits. 
He talked gossip and statistics. He naturally 
looked to his older brother Charles, who had nev- 
er married, to assist him with his large family. 
Daughters grown up, and growing daily, tem- 
pestuous school -boys at Eton, a midshipman, 
two wild young fellows in India, another very 
promising stupid son at college, who had gone up 
for his little go with great ^c/a^, Mr. Butler would 
tell you. There was no end to the young But- 
lers. But, unfortunately, Charles Butler great- 
ly preferred Dick to any of his brother's sons. 
The boy was like his mother, and a look in his 
eyes had jileaded for him often and often when 
Dick himself wondered at his uncle's forbear- 
ance. Now the cousins only resembled their 
father, who greatly bored Charles Butler with 
his long stories and his animal spirits. 

" We must go without mamma, if it is to be 
to-morrow," said Catharine Butler. 

" We could not possibly go without a chape- 
i-one," said Georgina, who was great on eti- 
quette. She was not so pretty as Catharine, 
and much more self-conscious. 

"Capital cold beef this is," said Mr. Butler. 
"Can't Matilda play chaperone for the occa- 
sion ? By-the-by, Catharine, I am not sorry to 
hear a good report of your friend Mr. Beamish. 
I can't afford any imprudent sons-in-law. Re- 
member tliat, young ladies." 

" Should you like Dick, papa?" said Georgie, 
with a laugh. 

"Humph! that depends," said her father, 
with his mouth full of cold beef. "I should 
have thought my brother Charles must be pretty 
well tired out by this time, but I believe that if 
he were to drop to-morrow, Dick would come in 
for Muttondale and Lambswold. Capital land 
it is, too. I don't believe my poor boys have a 
chance — not one of them. Down, Sandy, down." 
Sandy was Catharine's little Scotch terrier, who 
also was fond of cold beef. 

"Dick is such a dear fellow," said Catharine 
Butler, looking very sweet and cousinly, and 
peeping round the dish -covers at her father. 
"Of course, I love my brothers best, papa, but I 
can understand Uncle Charles being very fond 
of Richard." 

"Oh, Richard is a capital good fellow," said 
Mr. Butler (not quite so enthusiastically as 
when he spoke of the beef a minute before). 
"Let him get hold of any thing he likes, and 
keep it if he can. I, for one, don't grudge him 
his good fortune. Only you women make too 



much of him, and have very nearly spoilt him 
among you. Painting and music is all very 
well in its way, but, mark my words, it may be 
pushed too far." And with this solemn warn- 
ing the master of the house filled himself a glass 
of sherry, and left the room. 

Miss George, as she tied on her bonnet-strings 
after luncheon, was somewhat haunted by Dick's 
sleepy face. The vision of Geraint, and Launce- 
lot, and Enid, and King Arthur's solemn shade, 
still seemed hovering aliout her as she went 
along the dusty road to Kensington, where two 
little figures were beckoning from behind the 
iron rail of their school-house yard. Presently 
tlie children's arms were tightly clutched round 
Catharine's neck, as the three went and sat down 
all in a heap on Mrs. Martingale's gray school- 
house sofa, and there chattered, and chirped, and 
chirruped for an hour together, like little birds 
in a nest. 




CHAPTER III. 



Catharine had forgotten her morning vi- 
sions ; they had turned into very matter-of-fact 
speculations about Totty's new hat and Rosa's 
Sunday frock, as she came home through the 
park late in the afternoon. A long procession 
of beautiful ladies was slowly passing, gorgeous 
young men were walking up and down and 
along the Row, looking at the carriages and 
parasols, and recognizing* their acquaintances. 
The trees and the grass were still green and in 
festive dress; the close of tliis beautiful day 
was all sweet, and balmy, and full of delight for 
those who could linger out in the long daylight. 
The Serpentine gleamed through the old elm- 



20 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



trees and in the slant sun -rays. Catharine 
was delighted with the sweet fresh air and child- 
ishly amused by the crowd, but she thought she 
had better get out of it. As she was turning 
out of the broad pathway by one of the small 
iron gates of the park, she came face to face 
wjth Dick Butler walking with a couple of 
friends. He took off his hat as he passed, and 
Miss George again bowed with the air of a meek 
little princess. 

"Who is that?" said Beamish. "I don't 
know her." 

Mr. Beamish was destined to improve his ac- 
quaintance, for there came a little note from 
Mrs. Butler to Dick early next morning. 

"Mr DEAR EicHAED, — I am very sorry to 
find that I can not possibly join your party this 
afternoon, but the girls and your aunt will be 
delighted to come. The children declare you 
would be horribly disappointed if they did not 
make their appearance. I am afraid of their 
being troublesome. May I send Miss George 
to keep them in order? They are beyond their 
sisters' control, I fear. 

"Ever affectionately yours, 

"S. Butler. 

"P.S. — Will not you and Mr. Beamish be 
amiable and look in upon us this evening? you 
will find some friends." 

Dick's studio was in Queen's Walk. He 
lived in one of those old brown houses facing 
the river. He could see tlie barges go by, and 
the boats and the steamers sliding between the 
trees which were planted along the water-side. 
An echo of the roar of London seemed passing 
by outside the ancient gates of his garden ; with- 
in every thing was still and silent, and haunted 
by the past. An old dais of Queen Anne's 
time still hung over his doorway, and he was 
very proud of his wainscoted hall and drawing- 
room, and of the oaken stairs which led up to 
his studio. His friend lived with him there. 
Mr. Beamish was in the Foreign OfSce, and had 
good expectations. Ashe was an only son and 
had been very rigidly brought up, he naturally 
inclined to Dick, and to his Bohemian life, and 
the two young men got on very well together. 
The house had been a convent school before 
they came to it, and gentle black-veiled nuns 
had slid from room to room, rosy ragged chil- 
dren had played about the passages and the 
oaken hall, and had clattered their mugs and 
crumbled their bread and butter in the great 
I)Ow-windowed dining-room at the back. The 
young men had seen the place by chance one 
day, were struck by its quaintness and capabil- 
ities, and they agreed to take it together and to 
live there. The children and the nuns went 
away through the iron gates. Butler put work- 
men in to repair, aiwl polish, and make ready, 
and tlien he carne and established himself, with 
his paint-pots and canvases. 

The studio was a great long room, with a 
cross-light that could be changed and altered 
at will, for which purpose heavy curtains and 



shutters had been put up. There was matting 
on the floor, and some comfortable queer-shaped 
chairs were standing round the fireplace. The 
walls were paneled to about four feet from the 
ground, and from hooks, and nails, and brack- 
ets hung a hundred trophies of Butler's fancies 
and experiences. Pictures begun and never 
finished, plaster casts, boxing-gloves, foils, Turk- 
ish pipes and cimeters. brown jugs of graceful 
slender form, out of Egyptian tombs. Bits of 
blue china, and then odd garments hanging 
from hooks, Venetian brocades of gold and sil- 
ver, woven with silk, and pale and strange-col- 
ored stuffs and gauzes, sea-green, salmon-color, 
fainting-blue, and saffron and angry orange- 
browns. English words can not describe the 
queer, fanciful colors. 

There 'was a comfortable sofa with cushions, 
and a great soft carpet spread at one end of the 
room, upon which the tea-table stood, all ready 
laid with cakes and flowers. Beamish had gone 
out that morning and bought a wagon-load of 
flowers for the studio and the balcony. There 
was a piano in a dark corner of the room, where 
the curtains cast a gloom, but the windows on 
the balcony were set wide open, and the river 
rolled by gray and silvery, and with a rush, car- 
rying its swift steamers, and boats, and burdens. 
The distant banks gleamed through the full- 
leaved branches, a quiet figure stood here and 
there under the trees, watching the flow of the 
stream. It was a strange, quaint piece of medi- 
aeval life set into the heart of to-day. The young 
men should have woni powder and periwigs, or 
a still more ancient garb. In the church near 
at hand a martyr lies buried, and it is the old 
by-gone world that every thing tells of — as the 
river flows past the ancient houses. Presently 
the clock from the steeple of old St. Mary's 
Church clanged out, and at that very instant 
there was a loud ring at the bell. Beamish 
started up. Dick looked over the balcony. It 
was only the punctual children, who had insist- 
ed upon starting much too soon, and who had 
been walking up and down the street, waiting 
until it should be time for them to make their 
appearance. 

" Do you know, we very nearly didn't come 
at all, Dick ?" they instantly began telling him 
from down below in the hall. "Mamma said 
she couldn't come, and Miss George didn't want 
to — did you, Miss George? and they said we 
should be a bother; and we were afraid we 
were late, but we weren't." All this was chiefly 
in Algy's falsetto. Lydia joined in : " Wouldn't 
you have been disappointed if we had not come, 
Dick ? and why have you hung up all these lit- 
tle things?" 

"They are kitchen plates and old clothes," 
says Algy, splitting with laughter; "and some 
foils — oh, jolly." 

"Algy," said Miss George, very determined 
and severe, because she was so shy, "remember 
that I am going to take you away if you are 
troublesome." 

" He won't be troublesome. Miss George. He 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



21 



never is," said Dick, good-humoredly. "Look 
here ! •won't you sit down ?" and he pushed for- 
ward the enormous tapestried chair in whicli he 
had been lounging. Catharine sat down. She 
looked a very small little person in her white 
gown, lost in the great arm-chair. She glanced 
round curiously with her bright eyes, and forgot 
her role of governess for a minute. 

" How delightful the river is — what a dear 
old place!" she said in her plaintive childish 
voice. " What nice china !" — she happened to 
have a fancy for bowls and cracked tea-pots, 
and had kept the key of her step-mother's china- 
closet. "This is Dutch, isn't it?" she asked. 
And then she blushed up shyly, and felt very 
forward all of a sudden. 

"Here is a nice old bit," said Beamish, com- 
ing up to Dick's assistance with a hideous tureen 
he had picked up a bargain. " Butler and I are 
rival collectors, you know." 

"Are you?" said Catharine, blushing again. 

"Yes," said Beamish. And then there was 
a pause in the conversation, and they heard 
tlie river rushing, and both grew shyer and 
shyer. 

Meanwhile Dick was going about with the 
children, who had fortunately preserved tlieir 
composure, and who seemed all over the place 
in a minute. 

"And now show us something else," said Al- 
gy. "Miss George!" he shouted, "I mean to 
be an artist like Dick — when I'm a man." 

"What a brilliant career Algy is chalking 
out for himself, isn't he. Beamish?" said poor 
Dick. 

" He might do worse," Beamish answered, 
kindly. "You must let Miss George see your 
picture. He has painted a capital picture this 
time, Miss George." 

Dick had modestly turned it with its face to 
the wall. "They don't want to see my pic- 
ture," said Dick; and he went on pulling one 
thing out after another, to the delight of the 
three little girls who stood all in a row, absorb- 
ed in his wonderful possessions. Algy was in- 
specting a lay figure, and quite silent and en- 
tranced by the charming ci'eatui-e. Poor little 
Miss George, meanwhile, sat in her big chair, 
growing shyer and shyer every minute : she was 
longing for the others to appear. Perhaps Beam- 
ish also was looking out for them. 

They came at last, with a roll of wheels, a 
rustle, some gentle laughter and confusion on 
the stairs, and the two young fellows rushed 
down to receive their guests. Georgie was in 
61ue, and had her affected manner on ; Catha- 
rine Butler was all in a light gray cloud from 
head to foot, and looked like a beautiful appari- 
tion as she came under the curtain of the door, 
following her aunt. Madame de Tracy was bus- 
tling in, without any poetic or romantic second 
thoughts, exclaiming at every thing she saw — 
delighted with the convenience of the house. 
She was unlike Mrs. Butler in the sincere and 
unaffected interest she took in all sorts of other 
people's schemes, arrangements, money-matters 



and love-makings, lodgings, and various con- 
cerns. 

"But how well off you are here, Dick! I 
congratulate you ! you must feel quite cramped 
at Tracy after this. Catharine, look at that 
river and the flowers ... Is it not charming? 
You are quite magnificent ; my dear Dick, you 
are receiving us like a prince!" 

"Beamish got the flowei's," said Richard, 
smiling; "I only stood the cakes. Now, then, 
Catharine, you must make tea, please." 

They all went and sat round the tea-table in 
a group. Madame de Tracy and Georgina were 
upon the sofa. The children were squatting on 
the floor, while Miss George stood handing them 
their cakes and their tea, for Dick's chairs were 
big and comfortable, but not very numerous. 
Catharine Butler, with deft, gentle fingers, dip- 
jied the china into the basin, poured water from 
the kettle with its little flame, measured, with 
silver tongs and queer old silver spoons, the 
cream and sugar into the fragrant cups. She 
might have been the priestess of the flower- 
decked altar, offering up steaming sacrifices to 
Fortune. Beamish secretly pledged her in the 
cup she handed him with her two hands, and 
one of her bright sudden smiles. A little per- 
son in white, who was standing against some 
tapestry in the background, cutting bread and 
jam for the hungry children, caught sight of the 
two, and thrilled with a femimne kindness, and 
then smiled, hanging her head over the brown 
loaf. Dick, who was deeply interested in the 
issue of the meeting that afternoon-, was sitting 
on the back of the sofa, and by chance he saw 
one Catharine's face reflected in the other's. 
He was touched by the governess's gentle sym- 
pathy, and noticed, for the first time, that she 
had been somewhat neglected. 

" You want a table, Miss George," said Dick, 
placing one before her, and a chair . . . "And 
j^ou have no tea yourself. You have been so 
busy attending to every body else. Catharine, 
we want some tea here . . . Beamish, why don't 
you go and play the piano, and let us feast with 
music like the Arabian Nights ? ..." 

"How pretty the flowers are growing," cried 
little Sarah, pointing. "Oh, do look, Miss 
George, dear ..." 

"It's the sun shining through the leaves," 
said Madame de Tracy, in a matter-of-fact tone. 

" The water shines too," said Augusta. " I 
wish there was a river in Eaton Square ; don't 
you, Catharine?" 

"I envy you your drawing-room, Dick," 
said Madame de Tracy, conclusively. " Mr. 
Beamish, pray give us an air." 

Beamish now got up and went to the piano. 
" If I play, you must show them your picture," 
he said, striking a number of cliords very quick- 
ly, and then he sat down and began to play 
parts of that wonderful Kreutzer sonata, which 
few people can listen to unmoved. The piano 
was near where Catharine Butler had been 
making the tea, and she turned her head and 
listened, sitting quite still with her hands in her 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



lap. I think Beamish was only playing to her, 
although all the others were listening round 
about. I know he only looked up at her every 
now and then as he played. Little Catharine 
George had sunk down on a low chair by- the 
children, and had fallen into one of her dreams 
again . . . She understood, though no one had 
ever told her, all that was passing before her. 
She listened to the music ; it seemed warning, 
beseeching, prophesying by turns. Tiiere is one 
magnificent song without words in the adagio, 
in which it seems as if one person alone is ut- 
tering and telling a story, passionate, pathetic, 
unutterably touching. Catharine thought it 
was Beamish telling his own story in those beau- 
tiful, passionate notes to Catharine, as she sat 
there in her gray cloud dress, with her golden 
hair shining in the sunset. Was she listening? 
Did she understand him ? Ah ! yes. Ah ! 
yes, she must. Did every body listen to a story 
like this once in their lives ? Catharine George 
wondered. People said so. But, ah ! was it 
true ? It was true for such as Catharine But- 
ler, perhaps — for beautiful young women, loved, 
and happy, and cherislied ; but was it true for a 
lonely and forlorn little creature, without friends, 
without beauty (Catharine had only seen her- 
self in her glass darkly as yet), with no wealth 
of her own to buy the priceless treasure of love 
and sympathy ? The sun was shining outside ; 
the steamers and boats were still sailing by; 
Catliarine Butler's future was being decided. 
Little Catharine sat in a trance ; her dark eyes 
were glowing. Beamish suddenly changed the 
measure, and crashed about on the piano, until 
by degrees it was Mendelssohn's " Wedding 
March," which went swinging through the room 
in great vibrations. Then Catharine George 
seemed to see the mediaeval street, the old Ger- 
man town, the figures passing, the bridegroom 
tramping ahead, the young men marching along 
in procession. She could almost see the crisp 
brocades and the strange-cut dresses, and hear 
the whispering of the maidens following with 
the crowned bride ; while from the gables of the 
queer old town — (she even gave it a name, and 
vaguely called it Augsburg or Nuremberg to 
herself) — people's heads were pushing and star- 
ing at the gay procession. It was one of those 
strange phantasmagorias we all know at times, 
so vivid for the moment that we can not but be- 
lieve we have seen it once, or are destined to 
witness it at some future time in reality. 

Beamish left oft" playing suddenly, and bent 
over the instrument, and began talking to Cath- 
arine Butler in low, eager tones. Madame de 
Tracy and Georgie, who had had enough music, 
were standing at the window by this time, watch- 
ing the scene outside. The children, too, had 
jumped up, and ran out one by one upon the 
balcony. Not for the first time, and, alas ! not 
for the last, poor child ! a weary, strange, lost 
feeling came over Catharine George, as she sat 
on an overturned chest in the great, strange 
room. It came to her from her very sympathy 
for the other two, and gladness in their content. 



It was a sharp, sudden thorn of aloneness and 
utter forlornness, which stung her so keenly in 
her excited and eager state that two great tears 
came and stood in her eyes ; but they were 
youthful tears, fresh and salt, of clear crystal, 
unsoiled, undimmed as yet by the stains of life. 

Dick, who was himself interested for his 
friend, and excited beyond his custom, and who 
had begun to feel a sort of interest in the sensi- 
tive little guest, thought she was feeling neglect- 
ed. He had noticed her from across the room, 
and he now came up to her, saying very gently 
and kindly, " Would you care to see my picture. 
Miss George ? niy aunt and my cousin say they 
want to see it. It's little enough to look at." 

As he said, it was no very ambitious effort. 
An interior. A fishwife sitting watching for 
her husband's return, with her baby asleep on 
iier knee. One has seen a score of such compo- 
sitions. This one was charmingly painted, with 
feeling and expression. The colors were warm 
and transparent ; the woman's face was very 
touching, bright and sad at once ; her brown 
eyes looked out of the picture. There was life 
in them somehow, although the artist had, ac- 
cording to the fashion of his school, set her head 
against a window, and painted liard black shad- 
ows and deeply marked lines with ruthless fidel- 
ity. The kitchen was evidently painted from a 
real interior. The great carved cupboard, with 
the two wooden birds pecketing each other's 
beaks, and the gleaming steel hinges, with two 
remarkable rays of light issuing from them ; 
the great chimney, with the fire blazing (the 
shovel was an elaborate triumph of art) ; the 
half-open window, looking out across fields to 
the sea ; the distaff", the odd shuttles for making 
string, hanging from the ceiling ; the great brass 
pan upon the ground with the startling reflec- 
tions — it was all more than true to nature, and 
the kitchen — somewhat modified, and less care- 
fully polished — might be seen in any of the cot- 
tages and farmsteads round about the Chateau 
de Tracy for miles. 

" My dear Dick, you have made an immense 
start," said his aunt. "It's admirable. It's by 
far the best thing you have done yet. Who is 
it so like ? Catharine, only look at the brass 
pan and the cupboard. Madame Binaud has 
got just such a one in her kitchen." 

Dick shrugged his shoulders, but he was 
pleased at the praise. " I have another thing 
here," he said, smiling, " only it isn't finished." 
And he rolled out another canvas on an easel. 

" It's quite charming ! What's the subject ?" 
said Madame de Tracy, looking through her 
eyeglass. 

" Oh, I don't know. Any thing you like. 
A cart — Normandy peasants going for a drive 
— coming back from market," said Dick, blush- 
ing and looking a little conscious . . . "I have 
been obliged to paint out the girl's head, Geor- 
gie. I wish you'd sit to me." And looking 
up as he spoke — not to Georgie — he met the 
glance of two soft dark eyes which w^ere not 
Georgie's. " I wish you would sit to me, Miss 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



23 



George," cried Dick, suddenly inspired. "You 
would make a first-rate fishwife ; wouldn't she, 
Aunt Matilda ?" 

" I think Miss George would look very nice 
indeed in the costume," Madame de Tracy good- 
humoredly eaid. " She is a brunette, like all 



much occupied, and the children mustn't be neg- 
lected, and I hope they are not in trouble now," 
she added, looking round. "I'm afraid it is time 
for us to go." The clock of the old church had 
struck six some time, and, as she said, it was 
time to go. 




our girls." And Madame de Tracy turned her 
eyeglass on Miss George, and nodded. She then 
glanced at Dick. 

" I should be very glad to sit to Mr. Butler," 
said Miss George in her gentle Avay, " but I am 
afraid I should not have time. I am very 



Madame de Tracy looked at her watch, and 
gave a little scream. " Yes, indeed," she said, 
"my brother Charles and half a dozen other 
people dine in Eaton Square to-night. Are you 
coming?" 

" Beamish and I are coming in to dessert," 



2-t 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



said Dick ; at least he seemed to wish it this 
morning. 

" We have to get home, we have to dress," 
said Madame de Tracy, preoccupied. "-Geor- 
gie, where is my parasol ? Catharine, are you 
ready? Have you finished your talk?" 

Beamish and Catharine had finished their 
talk by this time, or begun it rather, for it was 
a life-long talk that they had entered into. 
The carriage had come back for the elders of 
the party. The children, who had eaten enor- 
mously, went off slightly subdued. 

The two young men stood in the iron gate- 
way, watching the carriage as it drove away, 
and the governess and the little pupils slowly 
sauntering homeward along the river side. 

Beamish looked very tall and very odd as he 
stood leaning against the iron gate, round which 
some clematis was clinging. 

Dick glanced at him, and then at the river, 
and then at his friend again. " Well !" he said, 
at last, pulling a leaf oiF a twig. 

" It is all right," Beamish said, with the light 
in his face as he put out his hand to Dick ; and 
then the two cordially shook hands, to the sur- 
prise of some little I'agged children who were 
squatting in the road. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EAT, DRINK, AND BE MEKRY. 

Catharine held little Sarah's hand tightly 
clasped in hers as they went home along the 
busy streets. She had not met with so much 
romance in her sliort hard life, this poor little 
Catharine, tbat she could witness it unmoved in 
others. She had read of such things in books 
before now, of Lord Orville exclaiming with ir- 
resistible fire, " My sweet, my beloved Miss An- 
ville !" of Rochester's energetic love-making; 
of Mr. Knightley's expressive eyes as he said, 
"My dearest Emma, for dearest you will be to 
me, whatever may be the result of this morn- 
ing's conversation." And she had read of the 
sweet bunch of fragrant lilac which a young 
lover had sent to his lady, and now here was a 
sweet bunch of lilac for Catharine Butler ; so 
the little governess called it to herself, and the 
sweetness and scent seemed dift'used all round, 
until they, the by-standers, were all perfumed 
and made fragrant too. 

Catharine had heard Mr. Beamish saying " I 
shall come this evening and see you, "as he put 
Miss Butler into the carriage. The girl had 
not answered, but her face looked very sweet 
and conscious, as she bent over and held out 
her hand to him. Poor Dick was looking on 
too, and a little old refrain came into his head. 
"En regrettant la Normandie," it went, " En 
regrettant . . ." Tiiis sweet dream of love-mak- 
ing made the w.ay short and ])leasant, though 
the children lagged and stopped at every inter- 
esting sight along the road. The man pouring 
beer out of his can, the milk-woman setting 



down her pails, the cart full of oranges and blue 
paper, the grocer taking in fogots two by two 
out of a cart — all was grist that came to their lit- 
tle mills, and delayed the fatal return to even- 
ing tasks and bed. For the little governess the 
sweet summer twilight was all aglow, and she 
was in a sort of enchanted world, where perfect 
happiness was waiting at unexpected corners ; 
where people understood what was in one an- 
other's hearts ; where there was a little trouble 
to begin with, but where at two or three-and- 
tweuty (Miss Butler was little more), or even 
sooner, the fragrant bunch of lilacs flowered for 
most people, and then what mattered all the 
rest? If the flowers were blooming on the 
branches, a passing storm, or wind, or darkness 
could not unmake the spring. 

One privilege belonging to her position Miss 
George had not, perhaps, valued so highly as she 
might have done. It was that of coming down 
in white muslin with Augusta after dinner when- 
ever she liked. Little sleepy Sarah, and the ag- 
grieved Lydia, would be popped into white calico 
and disposed of between the sheets, but Miss 
George and Augusta were at liberty to enjoy the 
intoxicating scene if they felt so inclined. 

Mr. Butler nodding off' over the paper — Mrs. 
Butler at her davenport, writing civil notes, one 
after another, in her large, even handwriting — 
Catharine and Georgina strumming on the pi- 
ano-forte — the back room quite dark, and the 
tea stagnating on a small table near the door- 
way : this was when there was nobody there. 
When there was company the aspect of things 
was very different. Both the chandeliers would 
be lighted, the round sofa wheeled out into the 
middle of the room. Three ladies would be sit- 
ting upon it with their backs turned to one an- 
other ; Georgina and a friend, in full evening 
dress, suppressing a yawn, would be looking over 
a book of photographs. 

"Do you like this one of me ?" Georgina would 
say, with a slight increase of animation. "Oh, 
what a horrid thing!" the young lady would re- 
ply ; " if it was me, I should burn it — indeed I 
should. And is that your sister ? — a Silvy, I am 
sure." Yes; my cousin Richard can not bear 
it : he says she looks as if her neck was being 
wrung." In the mean time, Catharine Butler, 
kindly attentive and smiling, would be talking to 
old Lady Shiverington, and trying to listen to her 
account of her last influenza, while Mrs. Butler, 
witii her usual tact, was devoting herself to the 
next grander lady present. Madame de Tracy, 
after being very animated all dinner-time, would 
be sitting a little subdued with her fan before her 
eyes. Coffee would be handed round by the serv- 
ants. After which the climax of the evening 
would be attained, the door would fly open, and 
the gentlemen come straggling up from dinner, 
while tea on silver trays was being served to 
the expectant guests. 

Mr. Butler, with a laugh, disappears into the 
brilliantly-lighted back room with a couple of 
congenial white neckcloths, while Mr. Bartholo- 
mew, the great railway contractor, treads heavily 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



across the room to his hostess, and asks if these 
are some more of her young ladies? and how was 
it that they had not had the pleasure of their 
company at dinner ? " My daughter Augusta is 
only twelve, Mr. Bartholomew, and is not think- 
ing of coming out," Mrs. Butler would say ; "and 
that is Miss George, my children's governess. It 
amuses her to come down, poor girl. Have you 
had any tea ?" 

Miss George, far from being amused by all this 
brilliancy, generally kept carefully out of the 
way ; but on this particular evening, after the five 
o'clock tea at the studio, she had been haunted 
by a vague curiosity and excitement, and she felt 
as if she must come down — as if it would be hor- 
rible to sit all alone and silent in the school-room, 
out of reach, out of knowledge, out of sight, 
■while below, in the more favored drawing-room, 
the people were all alive with interest, and ex- 
pectation, and happiness. 

Just before dinner she had met Madame de 
Tracy on the stairs, fastening her bracelets and 
running down in a great huri-y. Catharine look- 
ed up at her and smiled as she made way, and 
the elder lady, who was brimming over with ex- 
citement and discretion, and longing to talk to 
every one on the subject which absorbed her, 
said, 

" Ah ! Miss George, I see you found out our 
secret this afternoon — not a word to the children. 
Mr. Beamish is coming to-night after dinner to 
speak to my brother. Hush ! some one is on the 
stairs." 

Miss George was not the only person in the 
establishment who surmised that something was 
going on. Madame de Tracy's vehement under- 
tones had roused the butler's curiosity ; he had 
heard the master of the house confessing that he 
was not totally unprepared ; while Mrs. Butler 
was late for dinner, an unprecedented event, and 
had been seen embracing her daughter with more 
than usual effusion in her room up stairs. Mrs. 
Butler was one of those motherly women entirely 
devoted to their husbands and children, and who 
do not care very much for any body else in all 
the world, except so far as they are conducive to 
the happiness of their own family. She worked, 
thought, bustled, wrote notes, arranged and con- 
trived for her husband and children. Her daven- 
port was a sort of handraill, at which she ground 
down paper, pens, monograms, stamps, regrets, 
delights, into notes, and turned them out by the 
dozen. Her standard was not a very high one 
in this world or in the next, but she acted in- 
dustriously up to it, such as it was, and although 
her maternal heart was stirred with sympathy, 
she was able to attend to her guests and make 
small talk as usual. I do not think that one 
of them, from her mannei', could have guessed 
how she longed secretly to be rid of them all. 

Catharine George, who was only the little 
governess and looker-on, felt her heart stirred 
too as she dressed in her little room up stairs to 
come down after dinner ; unconsciously she took 
more than usual pains with herself; she peered 
into her looking-glass, and plumed and smooth- 



ed out her feathers like a bird by the side of a 
pool. 

She thought her common gown shabby and 
crumpled, and she pulled out for the first time 
one of those which had been lying by ever since 
she had left her own home. This was a soft 
India muslin, prettily made up with lace and blue 
ribbons. Time had yellowed it a little, but it 
was none the worse for that, and if the colors of 
the blue ribbons had faded somewhat, they were 
all the softer and more harmonious. With her 
rough dark hair piled up in a knot, she looked 
like a little Sir Joshua lady when she had tied 
the bead necklace that encircled her round little 
throat, and then she came down and waited for 
Augusta in the empty drawing-room. Catharine 
was one of those people who grow suddenly beau- 
tiful at times, as there are others who become 
amiable all at once, or who have flashes of wit or 
good spirits ; Catharine's odd, sudden loveliness 
was like an inspiration, and I don't think she 
knew of it. The little thing was in a strange 
state of sympathy and excitement. She tried to 
think of other things, but her thoughts reverted 
again and again to the sunny studio, the river 
rushing by, the music, the kind young men, and 
the beautiful, happy Catharine, leaning back in 
the old carved chair, with her bright eyes shining 
as she listened to Beamish's long story. The sun 
had set since he had told it, and a starlight night 
was now reigning overhead. The drawing-room 
windows were open, letting in a glimmer of stars 
and a fiiint incense from Catharine Butler's flow- 
ers outside on the balcony. Little Miss George 
took up her place in a quiet corner, and glanced 
again and again from the dull drawing-room 
walls to the great dazzling vault without, until 
the stars were hidden from her by the hand of 
the butler, who came in to pull down the blinds 
and light the extra candles, and to jdace the 
chairs against the wall. While he was thus en- 
gaged in making the room comfortable, he re- 
marked that "the ladies would not be up for 
ten minutes or more, and if Miss George and 
Miss Augusta would please to take a little ice 
there would be plenty of time." 

" Yes, certainly," said Augusta ; "bring some 
directly, Freeman." And she and Miss George 
shared their little feast with one spoon between 
them. 

The ladies came up from dinner, and Augusta 
was summoned to talk to them, and little Miss 
George was left alone in her corner. She was 
quite happy, although she had no one to s])eak 
to ; she was absorbed in the romance of which 
she had conned the first chapters, and of which 
the heroine was before her in her white gauze 
dress, with the azalias in her hair. 

And so one Catharine gazed wondering and 
speculating, while the other sat there patiently 
listening to the old ladies' complaining talk — to 
stories of doctors, and ailments, and old age, and 
approaching death, coming so soon after the 
brilliant strains of youth, and music, and ro- 
mance. 

One Catharine's bright cheeks turned very 



26 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



pale; the other, who was only looking on, 
blushed up, when, almost immediately after the 
tea-tray, tlie door opened, and Dick and Mr. 
Beamish walked in without being announced. 
Mrs. Butler looked up and smiled, and held out 
her hand. Mr. Butler came striding forward 
from the back room. Madame de Tracy put up 
her eye-glass ; Catharine Butler looked down, 
Imt she conld say "yes" quite quietly to old 
Lady Shiverington, who asked, in a loud whis- 
l)er, if that was Mr. Beamish. "The young men 
come to dinner, my dear, time after time," said 
the old lady, nodding her ancient head, "but 
they are all so much alike I don't know one 
from another." 

And so this was all that Catharine had come 
out of her si.'hool-room to see. Charles Butler 
liad been looking on too from the other end of 
the room, with little blinking eyes instead of 
dark fawn-like orbs, and at this stage of the pro- 
ceedings he moved out of the way, and came 
across and sank down, much to Miss George's 
alarm, in a vacant arm-chair beside her. There 
she Silt in her muslin, fair, pretty, soft, with shy, 
quick, curious glances ; and there sat the old 
fellow with his wrinkled face and thick eye- 
brows; she need not have been afraid, though 
he looked somewhat alarming. If Mr. Barthol- 
omew, who was standing by, could have known 
what was passing in the minds of these two peo- 
ple, he might have been struck, had he been ro- 
mantically inclined, by the duet they were un- 
consciously playing. 

" Matilda has been in great force to-night," 
thought Mr. Butler; "but her confidences are 
overpowering, whispery mystery — liiss, iiiss, hiss 
— how she does delight in a love-aftuir. If it 
had been poor unlucky Dick now — but I sup- 
pose no woman of sense would have a word to 
say to him, and he will make a terrible fool of 
himself sooner or later. Eh, eh, we have all 
made fools of ourselves ... It is only about 
half a century since I first saw his mother under 
the lime-trees. Poor dear! Poor dear !" and 
the old fellow began to beat a tune to a dirge 
with his foot as he tliought of what was past. 
Meanwhile Miss George was playing her treble 
in the duet. " What can it be like," the little 
governess was thinking, " to love, to be loved, 
actually to live the dreams and tlie stories ? 
Oh, I can not imagine it. Is it like listening to 
music? is it like that day when we climbed the 
hill in the sunset, my mother and I, higlier and 
liigher, and it was all like heaven in the valley ? 
Is there some secret sympathy wliich makes 
quite old and wrinkled people care when they 
see such things, or does one only cease to feel 
in time? How calm Catharine looks; she 
scarcely speaks to Mr. Beamish. I can see 
Madame de Tracy smiling and nodding her 
head to her across the room. Can people care 
really and truly, and with all their iiearts, and 
give no more sign ? What should I do if I 
were Catharine? Ah! what am I thinking?" 

Here Mr. Butler suddenly gave a grunt and 
said, 



" I am quite convinced the fault of all arm- 
chairs is that they are not made deep enougli 
in the seat ; my legs are quite cramped and stiff 
from that abominable contrivance in which I 
have been sitting. I can not imagine how my 
brother can go to sleep in it night after night in 
the way he does." 

" Isn't Mr. Butler's arm-chair comfortable ?' 
said Catharine, smiling. "The cluldren and I 
have always looked at it with respect ; we never 
should venture to sit in it, or not to think it deep 
enough in the seat." 

" 1 see Mr. Beamish is not too shy to occupy 
the chair of state," said old Mr. Butler, glancing 
at Catharine from under his thick eyebrows, and 
unconsciously frightening her into silence. 

Catharine was oppressed by circumstance, 
and somewhat morbid by nature, as people are 
who have lively imaginations, and are without 
the power of expansion. She had lived with 
dull people all her life, and had never learnt to 
talk or to think. Her step-mother was a tender- 
hearted and sweet-natured sad woman, who was 
accustomed to only see the outside of things. 
Mrs. George had two dozen little sentences in 
her repertory, which she must have said over 
many thousand times in the course of her life, 
and wliich Catharine had been accustomed hith- 
erto to repeat after her, and to think of as 
enough for all the exigencies and pliilosophy 
of life But now every thing was changing, and 
she was beginning to idea thoughts for herself, 
and to want words to put them into; and with 
the thoughts and the Avortls, alas! came the 
longing for some one to listen to her strange new 
discoveries, and to tell her what they meant. 
But it was not old Charles Butler to whom she 
could talk. She looked across the room. 

Yes, Beamish was there installed ; they were 
all welcoming him for the sake of their beloved 
princess. " Ah ! what am I thinking ?" thought 
Catharine again ; " would there be any one in 
the world to care if — " She did not finish the 
sentence, but a vague impossibility, in the shape 
of a Gernint with sleepy eyes and without a 
name, passed through her mind. As chance 
would have it, Dick Butler came sauntering uj) 
at this minute, and she started and blushed as 
usual, and her visions vanished. Catharine al- 
most felt as if he must see them flying away. 

It was not Dick, with his short-sighted eyes, 
who saw the little fancies flying away, but there 
were others jiresentwho were more experienced 
and more alive to what was passing. Madame 
de Tracy was a woman of lively imagination, 
who scarcely knew any of the people present, 
and had nobody to talk to, and it so happened 
that at the end of a quarter of an hour she be- 
gan to think that her nephew had been convers- 
ing quite long enough with Miss George. 

All the world might have heard what he was 
saying to her. Dick was only telling Miss 
George about Normandy, about the beautiful 
old ruins, the churches turned into barns, talk- 
ing Murray and little else. For reasons best 
known to himself, he liked telling of the places 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



27 



he had lately seen, although he said but little 
of the people he had known there. And Miss 
Geor};e was a good listener ; she said not niucli, 
but her bright little face brightened as he went 
on with his stories. They were prosy enough, 
some people might have thought. His uncle 
had joined in once and exclaimed, "Spare us 
the description of the next church you visited, 
Kichard ;" but Catharine George liked every 
word, and listened in delighted attention. Cath- 
arine listened ; she had better far have sat up 
all alone in her school-room, poor child, with 
her candle-ends and fancies of what might have 
been. 

Later in life, when people have outlived the 
passionate impatience of youth, when the mad 
wild longings are quieted, and the things their 
own, perhaps, and no longer valued, for which 
they would have given their lives once — long 
ago — when people are sober and matter-of-fact, 
when they have almost forgotten that strange 
impetuous self of former days, it is easy to 
blame and to phoo-phoo, to crush and brusli 
away the bright beautiful bubbles which the 
children are making in their play. Madame 
de Tracy did not feel one moment's remorse, 
sentimental as she was, when she came across 
and interrupted little Catharine's happy half 
hour, and Dick in his eloquent talk. 

Dick was asking Catharine what she thought 
of the five o'clock tea. "We had music. Uncle 
Charles, hadn't we. Miss George ? Beamish 
]dayed first fiddle, ^/i li voglio hen assui, a Nea- 
politan air, LTncle Charles. Nobody ever sung 
it to //oil." And Dick, who was excited and in 
liigii s]iirits, began humming and nodding his 
head in time. He suddenly stopped — old 
Charles made a warning sign. "Miss George 
was present and knows all about it ; don't be 
afraid, she is discretion itself, and of course we 
all are thinking about the same thing. What 
is the use of pretending?" 

"If Miss George is discretion itself, that 
quite alters the case," said Mr. Butler. 

Meanwhile Dick was going on — " Look at 
Uncle Hervey performing the jiire noble, and 
making Beamish look foolish. Dear old Beam- 
ish, I shouldn't let him marry Catharine if he 
was not the best fellow in the whole world." 

" My niece is fortunate to have secured such 
a paragon," said Charles, showing his sympathy 
by a little extra dryness. 

"Their faces are something alike, I think," 
said Miss George, timidly; "they seem very 
well suited." 

" Of course," said Dick ; " £5000 a year in 
prospect — what can be more suitable ? If they 
had no better reason for wanting to get married 
than because they were in love with one anotlier, 
then you should hear the hue-and-cry their af- 
fectionate relatives can raise." 

" Quite right too," said old Mr. Butler. 

Catharine glanced from one to the other. 

"You don't think it quite right, do you. Miss 
George ?" said Dick, and then his aunt came 
up and carried him oft". 



" Young fellows like Dick often talk a great 
deal of nonsense," said old Butler, kindly, as 
Catharine sat looking after the two as thev 
walked away arm-in-arm. "Depend upon it, 
my ne|)hew would no more wish to marry upon 
an incompetence than I should. Eemember, 
he is not the man to endure privation exce])t 
for his own amusement." 

He spoke so expressively, blinking his little 
gray eyes, that the girl looked up curiously, 
wondering whether he could mean any thing. 
All the evening she had been sitting there in 
her white gown, feeling like a shade, a thing 
of no account among all this living people, a 
blank in the closely written page, a dumb note 
in the music. A sort of longing had come 
over her to be alive, to make music too; and 
now to be warned even, to be acting a part 
ever so small in this midsummer night's dream, 
was enough to thrill her sad little childish heart 
with excitement. Could he be warning her? 
Then it came like a flash, and her heart began 
to beat faster and faster. There was something 
possible, after all, besides governessing and les- 
son-books in her dull life — something to beware 
of, to give interest, even the interest of danger 
to the monotonous road. To be scorned did 
not seem to her so unutterably sad as to be 
utterly passed by and ignored. Charles Butler 
never guessed the harm he had done. 

It was not the Miss George who had dressed 
herself in her yellowed muslin who went up 
stairs to bed that night. It was another Cath- 
arine George. The little moth had burst out 
of its cocoon, the wings had grown, and it was 
fluttering and fluttering in the candle's beauti- 
ful golden light. 

My simile would have been better if Catha- 
rine, the moth, had not herself blown out her 
candle when she reached her bedroom up stairs. 
She was hanging out of her window, trying to 
drink the night calm into her veins. " Is that 
bright beautiful planet my star, I wonder?" the 
governess was thinking. "How gayly it spar- 
kles ; it seems to be dancing in space. How 
the night wanes and shines ; how the stars blaze 
beyond the house-tops ! Did any one ever tell 
me that was my star? Why do I think so?" 
As Catharine gazed at the heavens and thought 
all this, not in words, but with quick sensitive 
flashes — down below, just under her feet, the 
well was being dug into which the poor little 
philosopher was doomed to tumble. Ah me ! 
was truth at the bottom of it, I wonder, instead 
of up overhead in the beautiful shining stars of 
good promise ? 

It seemed to little Catharine as if a burst of 
sunshine had come out suddenly into her dull 
life. She did not know whence or how it came ; 
she did not know very dearly what she was feel- 
ing; she did not tell herself that she ought to 
shut her heart, and ears, and eyes, until some 
one suitable in fortune and worldly circum- 
stances came across her way. She is only twen- 
ty years old, impressionable, soft-hearted. What 
can her girlish day-dreams have taught her? 



28 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



Can she have learned from them to mistrust 
people who are kind — to be careful, and cau- 
tious, and reserved — to wall up and bury the 
natural emotions of youth ? 

For the first time in her short life, ideas, feel- 
ings, sensations hitherto unthoujrht and unfelt, 
came crowding upon Catharine George. Every 
thing seemed changed, although she walked the 
same walks in the square — corrected the same 
mistakes in the chiklren's exercises — sat in her 
old place in the school-room. The walls seem- 
ed to have opened somehow to let in the unfa- 
miliar crowd of strange new ideas, of feelings im- 
possible to realize or to define. The difference 
in Catharine was not greater than that which a 
passing cloud makes in the sky, or a hurst of 
sunsliine breaking across the landscape. Out 
of the vague images and shadows which had 
hitherto made up her solitary life came a sud- 
den reality. The drifting dreams and fancies 
of what might be had vanished forever , the}' 
were gone, and in their stead it was to-day ; and 
Catharine, as she was — no ideal self to be — who 
was sitting there, and who had awakened one 
morning to find herself living her own life in 
the world of the present. Other discoveries she 
might make as she traveled farther; and times 
might come to her, as to most of us, when sol- 
emner visions close round about once more, and 
we realize with terrible distinctness that we are 
only dreaming in a kingdom of mists and shad- 
ows — a kingdom where the sounds die into si- 
lence — where the suns set day by day. But at 
this time every thing was real and keen enough 
to the poor little thing, of vast meaning and 
moment — never to finish, she thought — never to 
seem of import less vital — never, ah ! never ! 



CHAPTER V. 

AVHAT CATHARINE WISHED FOR. 

Fate, which for some time past seemed to 
have strangely overlooked the thread of Catha- 
rine George's existence, now suddenly began to 
spin it somewhat faster, and to tie a few knots 
in the loose little string. For one thing, Ma- 
dame de Tracy's thread flew so fast that it was 
apt to entangle itself with others alongside, and 
it would set all those round about flying with 
the vibrations of its rapid progress. 

Dick was a great deal in Eaton Square at this 
time, more than he had ever been before. The 
house was not generally so pleasant as it was 
just then ; Madame de Tracy was there bus- 
tling about and enjoying herself, and making a 
great talk, and life, and stir. Charles Butler, 
too, was in town, and often with his sister, and 
Dick was unaffectedly fond of his uncle's societ}'. 
Every body used to scold the young painter when 
he appeared day by day for leaving his work ; 
but all the same, they would not let him go back 
to it, when once he was with them. 

"I ought to go," Dick would say, as he re- 
mained to take his pleasure, and Catharine, com- 



ing down demurely at the end of the little pro- 
cession, never knew who she might find doM'n 
below. One great triumph Richard had to an- 
nounce. He had sold his picture, and got a 
good price for it ; although he hesitated, to the 
dealer's surprise, when it came to parting with 
his beloved fishwife. He had also received an 
order for the " Country-cart" as soon as it should 
be finished, and once again he said at luncheon, 

" Miss George, I wish you would let me put 
you into my cart." 

Some shy impulse made her refuse — she 
saw Mrs. Butler looking prim and severe, and 
Madame de Tracy unconsciously shaking her 
licad. It seemed very hard. Catharine nearly 
cried afterward when she woke up in the night 
and wondered whether Richard had thought her 
ungrateful. What could he think after all his 
kindness ? why had she been so shy and fool- 
ishly reserved? . . . "No, Lydia, it was Wil- 
liam the Conqueror who came over in 1066, not 
Julius Cffisar." 

, Meanwhile Richard the Conqueror, Butler 
Caisar, went about his business and his pleas- 
ure with feelings quite unwounded by any thing 
Catharine could do or say ; when she saw him 
again he had forgotten all about her refusal, 
and, to her delight and surprise, his manner was 
quite unchanged and as kind as ever. What 
trifles she pondered over and treasured up ! It 
was like the old German stories of twigs and 
dried leaves carefully counted and put away in 
the place of gold pieces — chance encounters — 
absurdities — she did not know what she was 
about. 

IMadame de Tracy, who never let go an idea, 
or who let it go a hundred times to return to it 
again and again at stray intervals, shook her 
head at all these chance meetings. Her depart- 
ure was approaching — her vigilance would be 
removed — she could not bear to think of what 
might not happen in her absence, and she had 
spoken to Mrs. Butler of a scheme for appealing 
to Dick's own better feelings. 

"My dear Matilda, I entreat you to do noth- 
ing of the sort. Dick can bear no remon- 
strance," Mrs. Butler cried. "I will see that 
all is right, and, if needs be, Miss George must 
go. I have a most tempting account of this 
German governess. Charles told me to bring 
Miss George to his picnic on Friday, but I think 
it will be as well that she should not be of the 
party." 

Poor unconscious little Catharine ! She would 
have died of horror, I think, if she had guessed 
how quietly the secrets of her heart were dis- 
cussed by unsympathetic by-standers, as she 
went on her way, singing her song without 
words. It was a foolish song, perhaps, about 
silly things, but the voice that sang it was clear, 
and sweet, and true. 

Charles Butler, the giver of the profound en- 
tertainment, was one of those instances of waste 
of good material which are so often to be met 
with in the world — a tender-hearted man, with 
few people to love him, living alone, with no 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



29 



nearer ties than other people's children ; a man 
of abilit)', who had never done any thing except 
attend to the commonplaces of life ; and these 
were always better arranged and controlled at 
Lambswold than any where else, for he knew 
what should be done and how to make other 
people to do it, and perhaps gave an attention 
and effort to small things which should have 
gone elsewhere. It was a kindly spirit, in a 
wrinkled, ugly, cranky old body. Charles But- 
ler's hook nose, and protruding teeth, and fierce 
eyebrows, his contradictoriness and harsh little 
laugh, were crimes of nature, so to speak, for 
they frightened away women, and children, and 
timid people. They had frightened Charles 
Butler himself into mistrusting his own powers, 
into believing that there was something about 
iiim which must inevitably repel ; they had de- 
stroyed his life, his best chance for happiness. 
He was a diffident man ; for years he had 
doubted, and hesitated, and waited — waited for 
this sad, lonely, aching old age which had come 
upon him now. His little nejjhews and nieces, 
however, had learned not to be afraid of him on 
a certain day in the year when it "was his custom 
to ask them all down for the day to Lambswold 
in honor ofhis god-daughter Augusta's birthday. 
They often staid there at other times, but this 
one day was tlie happiest of all, they thought. 
It came in midsummer, with a thrill of sweet- 
ness in the air, with the song of the thrush, 
when the strawberry-heads were hanging full 
and crimson, when all the roses were flushing. 
Little Sarah used to say she thought Lambswold 
was a pink place. 

It was an old-fashioned country house, stand- 
ing in the hollow of two hills, with a great slope 
in front, and a wide, plenteous world of wheat- 
fields, farmsteads, and straggling nut-woods to 
gaze at from the dining-room windows and the 
terrace. There were rising green meads on 
either side, and at the back of it kitchen-gardens, 
fruit-walls, and green-houses, and farm-build- 
ings, all in excellent order and admirably kept. 

"Oh, Miss George, how sorry you must be 
not to come !" Algy would say. 

"Yes, I am very sorry," Catharine honestly 
answered in her child's voice: for she had not 
yet outgrown the golden age when all things 
call and beckon, and the apples, and the loaves, 
and the cakes cry, Come eat us, come eat us, 
and the children, wandering in fairy-land, reply. 
We come, we come. She loved cakes, aifd ap- 
ples, and all good things still, and had not reach- 
ed to the time when it is no penalty to be deprived 
of them. But she had to pay the price of her 
youth ; and to those who are tied and bound 
down by circumstance, youth is often, indeed, 
only a blessing turaed into a curse. It consumes 
with its own fire and tears with its own strength. 
And so when Catharine, with a sinking heart, 
heard them all talking over arrangements for 
spending a day in Paradise with the angels — so 
it seemed to her — and not one word was spoken 
to include her in the scheme ; when she guess- 
ed that she was onlv to be left in the school- 



room, which represented all her enjoyment, all 
her hopes, her beginning and ending— then a 
great wave of disappointment, and wishing, and 
regretting seemed to overflow and to choke the 
poor little instructress of youth, the superior 
mind whose business in life it was to direct oth- 
ers and to lead the way to the calm researches 
of science, instead of longing childishly for the 
strawberries of life. But there were strawber • 
ries ripening for Catharine. 

One afternoon she was with the children, 
crossing the road to the house ; they were car- 
rying camp-stools, work, reels, scissors, the Heir 
of lieddiiffe, covered in brown paper, for read- 
ing aloud ; the Boy's Own Magazine, Peter Par- 
ky, a Squih ; Sandy, tightly clasped round the 
neck by Algy ; a rug, and various other means 
for passing an hour ; when suddenly Catharine's 
eyes began to brighten as they had a trick of 
doing, Sandy made a gasping attempt at a bark, 
and little Sarah, rushing forward, embraced a 
young gentleman affectionately round the waist. 
He was standing on the side of the pavement, 
and laughing and saying, " Do you always walk 
out with all this luggage ?" 

"We have only a very few things," said little 
Sarah. " Are you coming to our house ? Oh, 
Eichard, is it arranged about the picnic ?" 

"The carriage has not come back yet — 
thei'c's nobody at home. Oh, Dick, do wait and 
have tea with us," cried Lydia. 

" I think you might as well," Augusta said, 
in an aggrieved tone; "but I su])pose you 
won't, because we are children." 

"Oh do, do, do, do, do," said Algy, hoi)ping 
about with poor Sandy, still choking, for a part- 
ner. 

"I want to see my aunt and settle about 
Lambswold," said Richard, walking along with 
Miss George. "I think we shall have a fine 
day." 

"I hope you will," Catharine answered. 

" You are coming, of course ?" said Dick, fol- 
lowing them up stairs into the school-room. 

"I am going to see my sisters," said Catha- 
rine, blushing up. She took off her bonnet as 
she spoke, and pushed back her black cloud of 
hair. 

Richard thought Catharine looked much pret- 
tier when she went up stairs, blushing still and 
confused, with disheveled locks, than when she 
came down all neatly smoothed and trimmed a 
few minutes after, and sat down demurely at the 
tea-caddy. 

Outside she may have looked prim and de- 
mure — inside she was happier than any of the 
children, as she sat there with her radiant down- 
cast eyes reflected on the tea-pot. Never was 
a guest more welcome, and more made of, than 
Richard at his little cousins' tea-table. He was 
to be waited on by them all at once ; he was to 
have the arm-chair ; he was to choose his favor- 
ite cup. He chose Algy's little old mug, to the 
children's screams of laughter. 

"I think I shall make this my dinner," said 
Dick. "A slice and a half of thick bread and 



30 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



butter will be about enouf^h. I don't want to ' 
be' ungrateful for bospitality, but, pray, why is it 
cut so very thick ?" j 

"Don't you like it?" said Lydia, anxiously. ; 
"I will go and beg Mrs. Bluestiing for a small 
jiiece of cake for you." [ 

Augusta and Miss George began to laugh. , 
Dick said he was not accustomed to cake, and i 
insisted upon eating his thick bread and butter. 
The children dispatched theirs, and chattered 
and enjoyed his jokes, and so did the little gov- 1 
erness at her tea-tray. The coachmen were, as I 
usual, pumping in the court. i 

Again came the sunshine streaming through 
the window. Dick's hair was all bruslied up, ! 
and his gray eyes were twinkling. The cliil- 
dren's high spirits and delight were infectious ; 
all Miss George's primness, too, seemed to have 
melted away ; pretty little looks of expression 
of interest, of happiness, were coming and going 
in her round face. One of the golden half 
hours which are flying about all over the world 
liad come to them. They had done nothing to 
deserve it, but it was there. 

Catharine was still presiding at her little feast 
when the carriage came home with Charles But- 
ler and the two elder ladies, who were surprised 
to hear unusual shouts of laughter coming from 
the school-room. 

"They all seem very merry," said Mrs. But- 
ler, stopping with her hand on the lock. 

"I am certain I heard Richard's voice," said 
Madame de Tracy to Charles, who was toiling 
up more slmvly ; and as Mrs. Butler opened the 
door, to oue person within it seemed as if all the 
fun and the merriment, all the laughter and 
brightness, escaped with a rush, and kft the 
room quite empty. 

" Oh, mamma," said Lydin, sighing from con- 
tentment, "we have had such fun; Dick has 
been having tea with us out of Algy's old mug." 

" So I perceive," said Madame de Tracy, with 
a glance at Catharine. 

"Come in, come in," cried the children, hos- 
pitably, " do come in too." 

"I think you may come up stairs to us," said 
their mother, after a moment's hesitation, " for 
our tea is ready in the drawing-room." And 
then somehow to Catharine — it was like a dream 
— all the gay little figures disappeared, dancing 
off, ciiattering and talking still, with Sandy 
barking after them. The sunset was still shin- 
ing in, but the beautiful glowing colors had 
changed to glai-e. Dick had risen from his 
]dace when the two aunts entered, and he seem- 
ed to vanish away quite naturally with tlie rest. 
It was, indeed, like waking up from a hajipy lit- 
tle dream of friends' faces and briglitness, and 
with the music of beloved voices still ringing in 
one's ears, to find one's self alone in the dark. 

Catharine remained sitting at the tea-table 
with tlie scraps and dregs, tlie crumbled bits of 
bread — Algy's half-eaten slice — Lydia's cup 
overturned before her. She sat quite still; no 
one had noticed her; even Dick had gone off 
without saying good-hy. As on that day at the 



studio, a swift pang came piercing through her. 
She felt all alone — suddenly quite alone — in a 
great, cruel, terrible world in which she was of 
no account, in which she was carried along 
against her will, feeling — oh, so strangely — 
helpless and impotent. She did not know what 
she wanted, she did not know what she feared, 
but she shrunk from her own self with an ach- 
ing impatience. 

She jumped up and ran to the window to 
shake her new terror off. She looked down 
into the yard, where the hard-working coachman 
was pumjiing still, and a couple of dogs were 
turning over and over in play. Every thing was 
ugly, sad, desolate, that had been so gay and de- 
lightful a minute before. Utterly depressed and 
bewildered, the poor little thing sat down on the 
window-sill, and leant her weary head against 
the pane. Richard Butler, coming down a few 
minutes later, saw her through the half- open 
door still sitting there, a dark little figure against 
the light. 

"Good-night, Miss George," he said, with a 
kind inflection in his voice, coming in and shak- 
ing her by the hand ; "and thank you for your 
good tea." And then he went away. 

He had s))oken kindly; he had said some- 
thing — nothing ; but it was more than enough 
to make her happy again. As for Richard him- 
self, he was vexed, chafed, disquieted. He had 
had a little talk with his aunts up stairs, which 
had made him indignant and angry. They had 
taken him to task gently enough ; but all that 
they said jarred upon him, and stirred up secret 
springs of which they had no conception. Ho 
could hardly conceal his irritation as the two 
went on, blandly pouring out their advice from 
either side of the tea-table, when he asked wheth- 
er Miss George was not to be of the party. 

"No; I had not thought of inviting Miss 
George," said Mrs. Builer, stiffly. " It is always 
doubtful in these cases . . ." 

"Not to speak of the danger of mixin' the 
different grades of society," said Hervey, who 
was present, cross-legged, and looking like the 
Solomon who was to decide all difficulties. 

"Danger," said Richard; "what possible 
danger can there be ?" 

"You had better bring her," grunted Charles. 
"She has got a pair of uncommon bright eyes; 
and I suppose there are strawberries enough for 
us all?" 

"t)r we might take down a pottle on pur- 
pose for Miss George of an inferior quality," 
Richard said. "I do think it is hard lines that 
a nice little pretty thing like that should be shut 
up from morning to night in a dreary little hole 
of a sell — " 

Mrs. Butler, with a glance at Lydia, who was 
standing by, absorbed in the conversation, hast- 
ened to interpose. 

" She is quite admirable and excellent in her 
own way (children, go into the back drawing- 
room) ; but, my dear Richard, there is nothing 
more undesirable than putting people into false 
positions . . . The person of whom you speak 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



31 



is not de notre classe, and it would be but mis- 
taken kindness." 

"Precisely so," saicl Hervey, much pleased 
with the expression; "Miss George is not de 
7iotre clafsse." 

"Confound notre classe," said Richard, hast- 

il.V- 

" Don't be blasphemous, Dick," said his uncle 
CHiarles. 

"And then, remembering that this was not 
the way to s])eak in such company, the young 
man stopped short, and begged Mrs. Butler's 
l)ardon. 

Slie was pouring out small black-looking cups 
of tea, and looking offended with a turned-down 
mouth ; and, indeed, the maternal autocrat was 
not used to such plain talking. 

"It seems to me, Richard, that you are 
scarcely the person to provide amusement for 
Miss George," she said. 

"Ah ! Dick," cried Madame de Tracy, giving 
a little shriek and forgetting her prudence; she 
could i<eep silence no longer. "Be careful, my 
dearest boy ; do not let yourself be carried away 
by your feelings. I guessed — I am rapid to no- 
tice things — I have trembled ever since that day 
at the studio." She looked so anxious and so 
concerned between her frizzy curls that Dick 
burst out laughing. 

" So this is your fine scheme? No, you.have 
not guessed right. Aunt Matilda. Poor little 
Miss George is not dangerous for me, but I can 
not helj) losing my temper Avhen I hear persons 
of sense using the wicked old commonplaces 
which have made so many people miserable, 
and which condemn a poor child to such a 
dreary, unsatisfactory mockery of existence. 
There, she is just as well-mannered and pretty 
as Georgie or Catharine ; and I am not to eat a 
piece of bread and butter in her company for 
fear of being contaminated," cried Dick, in a 
fume. 

"Ah ! my poor Dick," said Madame de Tra- 
cy, "you are unconscious, perhaps, of the senti- 
ment ; imt I fear it is there." 

"I am speaking from no personal feeling," 
cried Dick, still angry ; and to Madame de Tra- 
c}' at least his words carried conviction at the 
time. (But was it so, I wonder ; and had Miss 
George's soft, pretty eyes nothing to do with 
the question ?) " It is a mere sense of fairness 
and justice, "Dick went on, "which would make 
me dislike to see any fellow -creature hardly 
used ; and if I have spoken half a dozen words 
of kindness to her, it was because ... It is 
no use staying any longer; I shall only offend 
more and more. Good-night." And then he 
suddenly took up his hat and went away. On 
his way down stairs, he relieved his mind by be- 
ing even more kind than usual to a person whom 
lie considered unjustly treated by the world in 
general and his aunts in particular. 

"Women usually respect a man when he is 
angry, even when he is in the wrong, and Rich- 
ard was not in the wrong. " I think for once I 
was mistaken," said Madame de Tracv; "and 



yet people are not always conscious of their own 
feelings. But, under tlie circumstances, we must 
take Miss George, or Dick will fancy ..." 

" Oh, certainly, if you all wish it," said Mrs. 
Butler. "Will you have any more tea, Matil- 
da? Now, children, what are you all about? 
You may go and ask Miss George to the picnic, 
and then come up and help me to dress." 

Meanwhile Richard was walking away, biting 
and pulling his mustache. He went along Eaton 
Square until he came to the public house at the 
coi'ner of Hobart Place. There he was stopped 
by a crowd of children and idlers who had taken 
up tlieir position on the pavement, for Mr. Punch 
was squeaking at the top of his voice from his 
pulpit, and they had all gathered round to listen 
to his morality. The children had already taken 
up their places in the stalls and were sitting in 
a row on the curb-stone. " Ookedookedookedoo," 
said Mr. Punch, "where's the babby? Throw 
the babby out of window." 

"Dook! dere it go," cried another baby, sit- 
ting in the gutter clapjiing its dirty little hands. 

Richard stopped for a minute to look at 
Punch's antics, going on with his reflections 
meanwhile. It seemed to him as if the world, 
as it is called, was a great cruel Punch, remorse- 
lessly throwing babies and children out of win- 
dow, and Miss George among the rest, while the 
people looked on and applauded, and Toby the 
philosopher sat by quite indifferent in his frill 
collar. 

"That poor little thing," he was thinking, 
"her wistful, helpless glances move me with 
pity; was there ever a more innocent little 
scapegoat ? Oh, those women ! their talk, and 
their assumption, and suspicions make me so 
angry I can scarcely contain myself De notre 
c/asse," and he began to laugh again, while 
Punch, capering and singing his song of " ooke- 
dook," was triumphantly beating the policeman 
about the head. " Would they think Reine ilc 
notre classe, I wonder?" he said to himself; 
"will it be her turn some day to be discussed, 
and snubbed, and patronized? My poor noble 
Reine" — and Richard seemed to see her pass be- 
fore him, with her eagle face — "is there one of 
them to compare to her among the dolls and 
lay figures de notre classe f He walked on; 
Punch's shi'ieks were following him, and ring- 
ing in his ears with the children's laughter. 
As he went along, the thought of Reine return- 
ed to him again and again, as it had done that 
day he walked along the sands to Tracy ; again 
and again he was wondering what she was do- 
ing: was she in her farm superintending, was 
she gone on one of her many journeys along the 
straiglit and dusty roads, or was she spinning flax 
perhaps at the ojien door, or reading by tlie dy- 
ing daylight out of one of her mother's old 
brown books? ... A distant echo of Punch's 
weird " ookedookedoo" reached him like a warn- 
ing as he walked away. 

The day at Lamhswold was a great success, 
the children thought. It was about twelve 



32 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



o'clock, when the shadows were shortest and the 
birds most silent, that the draj; and the flj^ from 
the station came driving up the steep and into 
the court. Charles Butler received them all at 
the door, shaking kands with each as they as- 
cended the steps. Catharine and the children 
had come in the fly, and the others preceded 
them in the drag. The house had been silent 
for months, and now, one instant after the ar- 
rival, the voices were echoing in the hall, up 
stairs in the bedroom, the children were racing 
round and round, Sandy was scampering up 
and down. It was like one of Washington Ir- 
ving's tales of the Alhambra, and of deserted 
halls suddenly repeopled with the life of other 
days. There was a great array of muslins, and 
smart hats and feathers. Catharine, too, had 
unconsciously put out all her simple science to 
make herself look harmonious, as it were, and 
in keeping with the holiday, with the summer 
parks, and the gardens full of flowers, with the 
fields through which they liad been speeding, 
daisy-sprinkled, cool, and deeply shadowed, with 
cattle grazing in the sunshine ; in keeping with 
the sky which was iridescent, azure, and gen- 
tly fleeced : in keeping with lier own youth and 
delight in its freshness. As Miss George came 
with her pupils, smiling, up tlie ancient flight 
of stone steps leading to the house, Charles But- 
ler was pleased with tlie bright, happy face he 
was looking down upon. It is only older peo- 
])le, after all, who are quite unselfish, and feel 
the greatest pleasure in witnessing the happi- 
ness of others. 

"I am very glad to see you here," he said, 
shaking hands with her courteously. 

Mrs. Butler, who was in the hall, looked round 
surprised at the unusual urbanity. Catharine 
George herself was not surprised ; she expected 
every body to be kind to-day, every thing to be 
delightful. The pretty figure came climbing 
the steps, with all the landscape for a back- 
ground. The sun was shining through the fly- 
ing folds of her muslin draperies, it was again 
reflected in the burning feather in her hat. 
The liglits shone from the dark eyes in antici- 
pation of the happiness which was already hers. 
What did not she expect? — for the minute any 
thing, every thing. Like many of us, she 
thought happiness was yet to come, and behold, 
the guest was here beside her. Happiness is 
but a shy goddess, as we all know ; she comes 
bashfully into the room, all the hearts suddenly 
leap and the eyes begin to brighten, but she is 
very apt to fly if we rush forward to embrace 
her. "How remarkably well Miss George is 
looking," said Beamish to his future mother- 
in-law. 

"Oh yes," said Mrs. Butler, "remarkably 
well." 




CHAPTER VI. 

MY LOVE IN HER ATTIRE DOTH SHOW HER WIT. 

The morning room at Lambswold was a 
gray, melancholy, sunshiny room. The light 
shone in through two great open windows on 
the gray walls and ancient possessions. A 
glass drop chandelier, quaint and old-fashioned, 
reflected it in bright prisms. A shrouded harp 
stood in one corner of the room. There was 
an old pink carpet, Avith a pattern of faded 
wreaths; a tall chimney-piece, with marble 
garlands, yellowed by time ; and fountains and 
graceful ornamentations. A picture was hang- 
ing over it — a picture of a lady, all blue and 
green shadows in a clouded world of paint, with 
a sort of white turban or night-cap on. She 
had the pretty coquettish grace which belonged 
to the women of her time, who still seem to be 
smiling archly out of their frames at their gap- 
ing descendants. 

Through the window there was a sight of a 
lawn and a great spreading tree, where figures 
were busy preparing the tables, and beyond 
them again a sweet pastoral valley and misty 
morning hills. 

" Ah ! how pretty !" cried Catharine Butler, 
stepping out at once through the window. 

Beamish, who had been cross coming down, 
and who had fancied she talked too much to 
Dick's new friend, Mr. Holland, followed her to 
give her a scolding ; but Catharine met him 
with a smile and a great red rose she had just 
pulled ofi^" the trellis. And so the two made it 
up, and stood picking rose-buds for one anoth- 
er, like a Dresden shepherd and shepherdess. 

" What time do we dine ?" said Hervey. " I 
suppose this is only luncheon, Charles?" 

"Humph!" said Charles, "I don't know 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



33 



what this is — earwigs most likely. Dick would 
have it out there." 

"Alas! we are no longer young enough to 
go without our dinners, my dear brother," ci'ied 
Madame de Tracy. "Do you remember — " 

"I see the croquet ground is in very good 
order," said Georgie, who had been standing 
absorbed before one of tlie windows, and who 
had not been listening to what they were sayiug, 
while Frank Holland (he was a well-known 
animal painter) walked straight up to the chim- 
ney and looked up at the picture. 

"Isn't this a Gainsborough?" asked the young 
man. 

"This, ladies and gentlemen," said Dick, 
who began to play showman, " is the celebrated 
portrait of my great-aunt. Miss Paventr}', the 
heiress. She brought Lambswold into the fami- 
ly, and two very ugly wine-coolers, which shall 
be exhibited free of any extra charge. That" 
— pointing to a picture between tlie windows — 
" is Kichard Butler, the Jirst martyr of the name. 
He was burned at tlie stake at Smithfield in 
Queen Mary's reign, surnamed the — " 

"What a charming picture!" said Holland, 
who had been all this time looking at the por- 
trait of Miss Paventry, while the children stood 
round, staring at him in turn. 

" Charming!" echoed Dick, suddenly astride 
on his hobby-horse ; "I didn't expect this from 
you, Holland." 

"Ta-ta-tn," said Charles Butler. "What 
have I done with the cellar key ? I shall only 
get out my second-best sherry ; it is quite good 
enough for any of you." And the host trotted 
off with a candle to a sacred inner vault, where 
nobody but himself ever penetrated — not even 
IMundy, the devoted factotum upon whose head 
it was always found necessary to empty the vials 
before any tiling could be considered as satis- 
factorily arranged. 

Meanwhile Dick was careering round and 
round at full gallop on his favorite steed, al- 
though he was lounging back to all appearance 
on the sofa by Madame de Tracy. "I see no 
charm in a lie," he was saying, in his quiet, 
languid way; "and the picture is a lie from 
beginning to end." Holland was beginning to 
interrupt, but Dick went on pointing as he 
spoke : " Look at that shapeless, impudent sub- 
stitute for a tree ; do you see the grain of the 
bark ? Is there any attempt at drawing in those 
coarse blotches meant, I suppose, for ivy leaves ? 
Look at those plants in the foreground — do you 
call that a truthful rendering of fact? Where 
is the delicate tracery of Nature's lacework?" 

"In the first place, I don't quite understand 
what you mean by a rendering of fact," said 
Holland ; " I cnn't help thinking you have 
cribbed that precious phrase out of a celebrated 
art-critic." 

"The phrase isn't English," said Madame de 
Tracy, who always longed to rush into any dis- 
cussion, whether she understood or not what it 
was all about. 

"I hate all the jargon," said Holland, draw- 
C 



ing himself up (a tall figure in an iron-gray suit, 
such as young men wear nowadays, with a smart 
yellow rose in the button-hole). " Art-critic ! 
art-history ! word-painting ! germ-spoiling of 
English. Pall ! I tell you, my dear fellow, 
whatever you may choose to criticise, Gains- 
borough looked at nature in the right way. I 
tell you he'd got another sort of sjicctacles on 
his noble nose than what are worn nowadays by 
your new-fangled would-be regenerators of art. 
If you want the sort of truth you are talking 
about, you had better get a microscope at once 
to paint with, and the stronger the insti-ument 
the more truthful you'll be. I tell you," con- 
tinued Holland, more and more excited, "if 
you and your friends are right, then Titian, and 
Giorgione, and Tintoret are wrong." 

"Hang Titian !" interrupted Dick, with quiet 
superiority, while his hobby-horse gave a sudden 
plunge and became almost unmanageable. " He 
was utterly false and conventional — infernally 
ckver, if you like. But we want truth — we 
want to go back to a more reverential treatment 
of Nature, and that is only to be done by patience 
and humble imitation." 

The reformer Dick Avas still lounging among 
the cushions, but his gray eyes were twinkling 
as they did when he was excited. 

Miss George, who had been listening absorbed 
all this time, looked up into his face almost fright- 
ened at the speech about Titian. Mrs. Butlei- 
said, "Fie, fie, you naughty boy!" with lum- 
bering playfulness. The sun was shining so 
brightly outside that the roses looked like little 
flames, and the grass was transfigured ; the chil- 
dren were tumbling about in it. 

Miss George should have remembered that 
there was youth and inexperience to palliate 
Richard Butler's irreverence. Youth has a right 
to be arrogant, or is at least an excuse for ])re- 
sumption, since it can't have experience ; and, 
moreover, Dick's exaggeration had its kernel of 
truth amid a vast deal of frothy pul]i. 

The truth, as Dick would write it, was that 
he and his comrades were reformers, and like 
reformers they would have broken the time-hon- 
ored images of the old worship in their new-bora 
zeal. It is healthier to try and paint a blade 
of grass to the utmost of your ability, than to 
dash in a bold background and fancy you are a 
Reynolds or a Gainsborough. But honest Dick 
will find that to imitate blades of grass, and 
bits of fern and birds'- nests with bluish eggs, 
however well and skillfully, is not the end and 
the object of painting. And, indeed, the right 
treatment was already visible in his works, fight- 
ing against system and theories. What can 
they produce but dry pieces of mechanism ? 

The true painter is the man who paints with 
his soul, and so finds his way to the hearts of 
his fellow-creatures. 

"She was a most delightful person, I believe," 
said Mrs. Butler, gazing in her turn at Miss Pa- 
ventry. " She never married." 

" It is very curious," said Holland, "but don't 
you see a decided likeness ? ' and he looked from 



34 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



the picture to one of the persons present, and 
then back at the picture again. 

" You mean Miss George," said Dick. " I've 
often noticed it ; but she has got a much pret- 
tier and more becoming hat on than that affair 
of poor old Aunt Lydia's. I like your red 
feather," said he, turning to Catharine. "If I 
were a woman," Dick went on, still contrary 
and discursive, "I should like to be a green 
woman, or a blue woman, or a red one — I 
shouldn't like to be a particolored woman. I 
don't know why ladies are so much afraid of 
wearing their own colors, and are all for semi- 
tones and mixtures. Now that feather of yours 
is a capital bit of color, and gives one pleasure 
to look at." 

" I should think the reason that most ladies 
prefer quiet colors," said Mrs. Butler, stiffly, " is 
that they do not generally wish to make them- 
selves conspicuous. No lady wishes to attract 
attention by overfine clothes," she repeated, 
glancing at the obnoxious feather, and rustling 
in all the conscious superiority of two pale 
mauve daughters, and garments of flowing dun- 
color and sickly magenta and white. 

" I do believe, my dear aunt, there are people 
who would like to boil down the Union Jack into 
a sort of neutral tint," said Dick, "and mix up 
the poor old buff and blue of one's youth into a 
nondescript green." 

" Such things have certainly been tried be- 
fore now," said Holland, while Butler, turning 
to Catharine, went on: "Don't let them put 
you out of conceit with your flame-color. Miss 
George ; it is very pretty indeed, and very be- 
coming." He was vexed with his aunt for the 
rude, pointed way in which she had spoken ; he 
saw Catharine looking shy and unhappy. But 
she soon brightened up, and as she blushed 
with pleasure to hear Dick liked her feather, its 
flames seemed to mount into her cheeks. In 
the fair apparel of youth, and innocence, and hap- 
piness, no wonder she looked well, and charmed 
them all by her artless arts. There is no dress 
more gorgeous and dazzling than Catharine's 
that day. Not Solomon in all his glory, not 
Madame Rachel in all her nostrums, not all the 
hair-pins, and eye-washes, and affectations can 
equal it. I can not attempt to define how rightly 
or wrongly Catharine was behaving in looking 
so pretty and feeling so happy in Dick Butler's 
company, in having placed an idol upon her 
most secret shrine, and then fallen down and 
worshiped it — an idol somewhat languid and 
nonchalant, with mustaches, with a name, alas! 
by this time. Poor little worshiper! it was in 
secret that she brought her o^erings, her turtle- 
dove's eggs, and flowers, and crystal drops, and 
sudden lights, and flickering tapers. She was 
a modest and silent little worshiper; she said 
nothing, did nothing: only to be in this para- 
dise with her idol there before her walking about 
iu a black velvet suit ; to be listening to his talk, 
and to the song of the birds, and to the scythe 
of the reapers ; to witness such beautiful sights, 
gracious aspects, changing skies — it was too 



good almost to be true. It seemed to Catha- 
rine as if the song in her heart was pouring out; 
she could not contain it, and all the air seemed 
full of music. She wondered if the others were 
listening to it too. But they were busy unpack- 
ing the hampers and getting out the sherry, nor 
had they all of them the ears to hear. 

Some gifts are dangerous to those who possess 
them : this one of Catharine's means much dis- 
cord in life as well as great harmony ; saddest 
silence, the endless terrors and miseries of an 
imaginative nature ; the disappointment of ca- 
pacities for happiness too great to be ever satis- 
fied in this world. 

But, in the mean time, Mrs. Butler, returning 
from a short excursion to the hampers, could 
hardly believe it was her silent and subdued 
little governess who was standing there chatter- 
ing and laughing. Her eyes were dancing and 
her voice thrilling, for Avas not Dick standing 
by? 

Providence made a great mistake when it put 
hearts into ^irls — hearts all ready to love, and 
to admire, and to be grateful and happy with a 
word, with a nothing. And if Providence had 
made a still farther mistake, and made depend- 
ents of the same stuff as the rest, and allowed 
them to forget for one instant their real station 
in life, Mrs. Butler was determined to supply 
any such deficiencies, and to remind Miss George 
if ever she chanced to forget. But poor little 
Catharine, as I have said, defied her in her brief 
hour of happiness. She would not remember, 
and, indeed, she could not prevent her cheeks 
from blushing and her eyes from shining more 
brightly than any others present. Her youth, 
her beauty, her sweet, abrupt girlishness assert- 
ed themselves for once, and could not be re- 
pressed. Nobody could put them out. Even 
when she was silent these things were speaking 
for her in a language no one could fail to under- 
stand. If it had been one of Mrs. Butler's own 
daughters, she would have looked on with gen- 
tlest maternal sympathy at so much innocent 
happiness ; but for Miss George she had no 
feeling save that of uneasiness and disquiet. It 
was hard upon the poor mother to have to stand 
by and see her own well-educated, perfectly com- 
monplace Georgie eclipsed — put out — distanced 
altogether by this stiff, startled, dark-eyed little 
creature, with the sudden bright blushes coming 
and going in her cheeks. Mrs. Butler could 
not help seeing that they all liked talking to 
her. Charles Butler, Holland (Mr. Holland had 
quite lost his heart to the pretty little governess), 
Dick, and Beamish even. But tlien Georgie 
did not look up all gr.ateful and delighted if 
any body noticed her, and flush up like a snow 
mountain at sunrise ! 

Of course Catharine would have been behaving 
much better if she had shown far more strength 
of character, and never thought of any thing 
less desirable than Augusta's French or Lydia's 
histor}', and if she had overcome any feelings — 
even before she was conscious of them — except 
those connected with her interesting profession. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



35 



But Catharine had no strength of mind. She 
was led by any body and any thing that came 
across her way. She was one of those people 
who are better liked by men than by women ; 
for it is difficult sometimes for the weary and 
hardly-tried amazons of life to feel a perfect 
tolerance and sympathy with other women of 
weaker mould and nature. These latter are 
generally shielded and carried along by other 
strength than their own ; they rest all through 
the heat of the day, leaving others to fight their 
battles and to defend them, and then, when the 
battle is over, are resting still. The strongest 
and fiercest of amazons would be glad to lay 
down her arms at times, and rest, and be weak, 
and cared for; but the help comes not for her; 
slie must bear the burden of her strength and 
courage, and fight on until the night. 

Mrs. Butler was one of the amazons of the 
many tribes of amazons that still exist in the 
world. They are married as well as unmarried. 
This woman for years and years had worked, 
and striven, and battled for her husband and 
children ; she managed them, and her husband, 
and his affairs ; she dictated, and ruled, and 
commanded ; she was very anxious at times, 
very weary, very dispirited, but she gave no sign, 
allowed no complaint to escape her, bore her suf- 
ferings in silence. Once, and once only, to her 
eldest daughter she had spoken a little half word, 
when things were going very wrong — when Fran- 
cis's debts were most overwhelming — when Rob- 
ert had got into some new scrape worse than the 
last — when money was not forthcoming, and 
every thing was looking dark. "Dear mam- 
ma," Catharine Butler had said, with her tender 
smile, and closed her arms round the poor har- 
assed mother's neck in a yoke that never galled. 
As the day wore on, Mrs. Butler seemed to 
avoid little Catharine, or only to speak to her in 
a cold, indifferent voice, that made the girl won- 
der what she had done amiss. Now and again 
slie started at the rude set-downs to which she 
was little accustomed. What did it all mean ? 
What crime was she guilty of? She could not 
bring herself to think otherwise than tenderly of 
any one belonging to the house she had learnt 
to love. She meekly pursued her persecutrix 
with beseeching eyes. She might as well have 
tried to melt a glacier. To people who have 
taken a prejudice or a dislike, every word is mis- 
understood, every look offends ; and Catharine's 
wistful glances only annoyed and worried Mrs. 
Butler, who did not wish to be touched. Had 
some malicious Puck squeezed some of the juice 
of Oberon's purple flower upon Catharine's scar- 
let feather to set them all wandering and at cross 
purposes all through this midsummer's day ? In 
and out of the house, the garden, the woods, this 
little Helen went along with the rest, looking 
prettier, more pathetic, every minute. We all 
have a gift of second-sight more or less developed, 
and Catharine knew something was coming now 
that the first burst of happiness was over. An 
old saw came into her head about a light heart 
in the morning bringing tears before night. 



The luncheon did credit to Mundy and the 
hampers. There were no earwigs, only little 
soft winds to stir the cloth, cross-lights, and a 
gentle check-work of gray shadow upon the 
dresses. Charles Butler's second best wine was 
so good that they all laughed, and asked what 
his best could be. Sandy frisked about and 
feasted upon mayonnaise and pressed veal. 
Sandy had a companion, Mr. Holland's dog Pe- 
ter, a self-conscious pug, with many affectations, 
and with all the weaknesses belonging to a sensi- 
tive nature. He was nevertheless a faithful and 
devoted friend, tender-hearted and curly-tailed. 
Sandy had seen less of the world, and sniffed 
about in a little rough coat without any preten- 
sions, and was altogether of a less impressionable 
and artistic nature. He loved good sport, good 
bones, and a comfortable nap after dinner. His 
master was of a different calibre to Peter's, and 
dogs are certainly influenced by the people with 
whom they live. All day long Peter walked 
about at Holland's heels, quite regardless of San- 
dy's unmeaning attacks and invitations to race 
or to growl. Peter only shook him off, and ad- 
vanced in that confidential, consequential man- 
ner which is peculiar to his race. 

Luncheon had come to an end. Catharine 
looked up, and breathed a great breath as she 
looked into the keen glimmer overhead ; soft; 
little winds, scented with pine-wood and rose- 
trees, came and blew about. Holland and Dick 
had got into a new discussion over the famous 
Gainsborough, and the children, who thought it 
all very stupid, had jumped up one by one and 
run away to the croquet-ground. But Catharine 
forgot to go. There she sat on the grass, with 
her back against the trunk of the tree, saying 
nothing, looking every thing, listening and ab- 
sorbed. Catharine did well to rest in this green 
bower for a little before starting along the dusty 
high-road again. People are forever uttering 
warnings, and telling of the dangers, and deep 
precipices, and roaring torrents to be passed ; 
but there are every where, thanks be to heaven, 
green bowers and shady places along the steep- 
est roads. And so, too, when the tempest blows 
without and the rain is beating — tired, and cold, 
and weary, you come, perhaps, to a little road- 
side inn, where lights are burning, and food and 
rest await you. The storm has not ceased; it 
is raging still, but a shelter interposes between 
you and it for a time, and j^ou set off with new 
strength and new courage to face it. 

Mrs. Butler, as usual, recalled Catharine to 
herself. 

" Miss George, be so good as to see what the 
children are doing." And so poor Catharine 
was dismissed from her green bower. It was 
hard to have to go — to be dismissed in disgrace, 
as it were, with Dick standing by to see it. The 
children were close at hand, and not thinking of 
mischief. 

"We don't want you, Miss George," cried 
Lydia ; " we are four already; stand there and 
see me croquet Augusta." Miss George stood 
where she was told, but she looked beyond the 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



point which was of all-absorbing interest to 
Lydia at that instant. Her sad eyes strayed to 
the group under the tree. There was Dick lying 
at full length on the grass : he was smoking, 
and had hung up his red cap on a branch. Hol- 
land, in his iron-gray suit, Avas leaning against 
the trunk ; Catharine Butler and Beamish were 
side by side in the sliadow. Georgie was in tlio 
sunshine, with her dress all beflecked with trem- 
bling lights and shades, while the elders sat at 
the table talking over by-gone times. Catharine 
turned away ; she could not bear the sight ; it 
made her feel so forlorn and alone to stand apart 
and watch all these people together. 

Catharine was afraid, too, lest sonie one should 
come up and see her eyes full of tears as she stood 
watching the balls roll and listening to the tap 
of the mallets. It was all so lovely and yet so 
perverse. The sweetness, the roses, the sun- 
shine, made it hurt more, she thought, when 
other things were unkind. This day's pleasure 
Was like a folse friend with a smiling face ; like 
a beautiful sweet rose which she had picked just 
now, with a great sharp thorn set under the leaf. 
What had she done ? Why did jVIrs. Butler 
look so cold and so displeased when she spoke? 
Whenever she was happiest something occurred 
to remind her and warn her that happiness was 
not for her. Catharine longed to be alone, but 
it was quite late in the afternoon before she 
could get away. The children were all called 
into the drawing-room by their sisters, and then 
the little governess escaped along the avenue 
where the rose-leaves which Beamish and Cath- 
arine had scattered were lying. She was sick 
at heart and disappointed. It was something 
more than mere vanity wounded Avhich stung 
her as she realized that for some inscrutable 
reason it is heaven's decree that people should 
not be alike ; that some must be alone and some 
in company ; some sad and some merry ; that 
some should have the knowledge of good and 
others the knowledge of evil. She must not 
hope for roses such as Catharine's. She must 
not be like Georgie, even, and speak out her own 
mind, and make her own friends, and be her own 
self. It was hard to be humiliated before Dick. 
It was no humiliation to be a governess and to 
earn her own living ; but to have forgotten her 
place, and to be sent down lower like the man 
in the parable — ah! it was hard. 

Catharine wandered on without much caring 
■where she went, until she found herself in a 
quaint, sunny nook, where all sorts of old-fash- 
ioned flowers were blowing — tiger lilies, white 
lilies, balsam, carnations — in ablaze against tlie 
lichen-grown walls. The colors were so bright, 
the place so silent, and sweet, and perfumed, 
that Catharine, coming into it, forgot her didl 
speculations. It had been a flower-garden wliich 
Miss Paventry had laid out once upon a time, 
and it had been kept unchanged ever since. 
■Quaint, bright, strange, it was the almost forgot- 
ten perfume of other times that these flowers 
were exhaling. 

Catharine staid there a long time. She could 



not tear herself away. She was standing by a 
tall lily, with her nose in the cup, sniffing up the 
ftiint sleepy fragrance, when she heard steps upon 
the gravel-walk, and, turning round, she saw a 
bright red cap, and beside it a careless figure 
coming along with the peculiar swinging walk 
she knew so well. Ever after the scent of lilies 
conjured up the little scene. 

Long afterward, Dick, too, remembered the 
little figure turning round with startled eyes, 
and looking as guilty as if it were a crime to be 
found smelling the lilies. Holland thought she 
might have been an Italian Madonna in her 
framework of flowers, such as the old painters 
loved to paint.- 

" Have you been hiding yourself away here 
all the afternoon?" said Dick. "Ain't it a 
charming little corner ?" 

The two young men waited for a few minutes, 
and seemed to take it for granted Catharine was 
coming back to the house with them. 

"Do you dislike our cigars?" said Butler, 
seeing, that she hesitated. 

" Oh no ! It was — " 

She stopped short, blushed, and came hastily 
forward. What would Mrs. Butler say, she was 
thinking ; and then she was afraid lest they 
should have guessed what she thought. 

What would Mrs. Butler say ? What did she 
say when she saw the three walking quietly 
toward the house, sauntering across the lawn, 
stopping, advancing again, and talking as ther 
came ? 

Catharine's fate, like most people's, was set- 
tled by chance, as it were. People seem them- 
selves to give the signal to destiny. Fall axe, 
strike fatal match. Catharine dropped a rose 
she was holding, and Dick bent down and pick- 
ed it up for her, and that was the signal. No 
one saw the axe, but it fell at that moment, and 
the poor little thing's doom was fulfilled. 

The ladies, tired of the noise indoors, had 
come out upon the terrace. The children had 
been dancing — a Spanish dance, they called it — 
for the last twenty minutes ; gracefully sliding 
about, and waving their legs and arms to Geor- 
gie's performance on the piano-forte. The jin- 
gle of the music reached the terrace, but it was 
only loud enough to give a certain zest to the 
mildness and quiet of the sunset. The long 
shadows were streaking the hills, a glow shiver- 
ed, spread, and tranquilly illumined the land- 
scape, as the two figures on the terrace looked 
out at the three others advancing across the lawn. 

" Miss George forgets herself strangely, " said 
Mrs. Butler; "to-morrow shall end all this; 
but it is really very embarrassing to be obliged 
to dismiss her. I shall send her to Mrs. Mar- 
tingale's, from whom I hope to get a German 
this time." 

"Poor child!" said Madame de Tracy, com- 
passionately; "she means no hann. I have a 
great mind to take her back to Ernestine. I 
am sure my daughter-in-law would be delighted 
with her, Ernestine is so fastidious." 

" I really can not advise you," said Mrs. But- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



37 



ler. ' ' This is a AvarninK to me never to engage 
a pretty governess again." 

"She can not help being pretty," said Ma- 
dame de Tracy. "I detest ugly people," re- 
marked this Good Samaritan. " I believe she 
would be a treasure to Ernestine. Those be- 
loved children are darlings, but they speak En- 
glish like little cats ; their accent is deplorable, 
and yet their moth'fer will not allow it. I am 
sure she ought to be eternally grateful to me if 
I take back Miss George." 

" Fray take care, my dear Matilda," said Mrs. 
Butler. "Interference is always so undesirable. 
I always try to keep to my own side of the 
way. I really could not blame Ernestine if she 
should . . ." 

Madame de Tracy could not endure opposi- 
tion. "I do not agree with you. There is 
nothing so valuable as judicious interference. 
I know perfectly what I am about ; Ernestine 
will be quite enchanted." Madame de Tracy 
was so positive that Mrs. Butler hesitatedr, she 
disliked scenes and explanations. Here was an 
easy way of getting rid of the poor little objec- 
tion at once, without effort or trouble ; she would 
be provided for, and Mrs. Butler was not with- 
out one single grain of kindness in her compo- 
sition. Miss George had been very useful and 
conscientious ; she had nursed Algy when he 
was ill. Mrs. Butler was angry with Catharine, 
but she did not wish her harm ; she was, to a 
cei-tain point, a just woman with her temper un- 
der control. 

"I think it would be an excellent opportuni- 
ty," said she, "if Ernestine really wishes for a 
governess for her children, and you are not 
afraid of the responsibility." 

"Oh, I will answer for that," said Madame 
de Tracy, waving a welcome to the two young 
men. " The thing is arranged. Hush-sh-sh !" 

Madame de Tracy's warnings usually came 
after the flash, like the report of a gun. Cath- 
arine, coming along and listening a little anx- 
iously for the first greetings, caught the words 
and the glance of significance. What had they 
been saying? what did it mean? Her quick 
apprehensions conjured up a hundred different 
solutions; reprimands in store, no more holi- 
days, no more merry-making. The reality oc- 
curred to her as an impossibility almost. To 
very young people changes are so impossible. 
They would like to come and to go, and to 
see all the world, but to return always to the 
nest in the same old creaking branch of the 
tree. Catharine was frightened and uneasy. 
All the way home in the drag, through the gray 
and golden evening ; in the railway, scudding 
through a dusky wide country, where lights 
shone from the farmsteads, and pools still re 
fleeted the yellow in the west, she sat silent in 
her corner, with little Sarah asleep beside her. 
Catharine sat there half happy, almost satisfied, 
and yet very sad, and imagining coming evils. 
Let them come ! They only seemed to make 
the day which was just over shine brighter and 
brighter by comparison. They could not take 



it from her; slie should remember it always. 
And Catharine said grace, as the children do, 
sitting there in her quiet corner. " Oh, I wish 
I was always happy," thought the girl; "I do 
so like being happy ! . . ." 

"Nothing could have gone off better," said 
Hervey, at the window, as they all got out at 
Victoria Station. 

"That idiot Mundy very nearly ruined the 
whole thing," said Charles. "He forgot the 
soda-water. I had to telegraph to G ■" 

"Thanks so much," said Mrs. Butler, coming 
up. "Now, children? Has any one called a 
cab for them ? The carriage has come for us." 

"Good-night, Miss George," said Dick, un- 
der a lamp -post; and every body else said 
"Good-night, good-night." 



CHAPTER VIL 

".\ QUOI JE SONGE." 

Meanwhile Catharine's fate was settled, and 
Mrs. Butler came into the school -room next 
morning to announce it. A sort of feeling 
came over her, poor child, that it was her death- 
warrant which this gracious lady in black silk 
robes was announcing in a particularly bland, 
encouraging tone of voice. What had she 
done ? against whom had she conspired ? of 
what treason was slie guilty? 

" Oh, why ami to go ?" said Catharine, look- 
ing up very pale from her book with round, 
dark, startled eyes. 

Even Mrs. Butler's much preoccupied heart 
was touched by the little thing's helpless, woe- 
begone appeal. 

"You have always been quite invaluable to 
me, my dear Miss George, and I shall miss you 
excessively, but it is sincerely in your own in- 
terest that I am recommending this step to you," 
Mrs. Butler said, not unkindly. 

" Oh no, no," said Catharine, feebly clutch- 
ing at the table-cover. "This is too far; I 
can not speak French. I could not bear to be 
away, to leave my sisters, every body !" And 
she suddenly burst out crying. "Oh, I am so 
silly, so sorry," she sobbed, "for of course I 
must leave, if you wish it." 

"Pray, my dear Miss George," said Mrs. 
Butler, still kind, yet provoked, "do not dis- 
tress yourself unnecessarily. You are really 
quite blind, on this occasion, to your own ad- 
vantage" (and this was a thing that was almost 
incomprehensible to Mrs. Butler). "Forgive 
me for saying so, but I do think it is your duty 
(as it is that of every one of us) to make the best 
of circumstances, particularly when there is an 
increase of salary and an excellent opportunity 
for improving in French. I do seriously rec- 
ommend you to think my sister-in-law's proposal 
well over, and to consult your friends." 

And the messenger of fate hastened off to her 
davenport, and poor Catharine sat crying, with 
the tears dripping over the page. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



No, no, no ; she could not bear to go tossing 
about all alone in the world ; it was too hard, 
too hard. What was she to do? who would 
tell her what she was to do ? Once a wild 
thought came to her of asking Dick to help her; 
he was kind — he would not let them send her 
away. Why were they driving her from their 
door? What had she done? — what indeed? 
A swift terror jarred through her beyond the 
other sad complex emotions that were passing 
in disorder through her mind. Could they 
think, could they imagine for one minute ? The 
little pale face began to burn, and the eyes to 
flash, and her hands seemed to grow cold with 
horror; but no, no, it was impossible. They 
could not read her heart ; and if they did, what 
was there for them to see? They were worldly, 
hard people ; they did not know what friend- 
ship meant, how faithful it could be, how long 
it could last, how much it was ready to give, 
how little it required. And then, after a time, 
a revulsion came, and she felt as if all she 
wanted was to go — to go away and hide her 
head from them all. If it were not for Rosy 
and Totty, she did not care what was to 
come. 

She went to bed that night with a heart ach- 
ing dully, and she dreamt sad dreams until 
the morning came; and then, as Mrs. Butler 
advised, Catharine thought of consulting her 
friends. She walked down to Kensington to 
Mrs. Martingale's school, whei'e her two chief 
advisers were to be found, and she wrote a 
couple of notes, which she posted on her way — 
one was to Lady Farebrother, at Tunbridge 
Wells, who belonged to the religious communi- 
ty there ; the other was to Mrs. Buckington, who 
was staying at Brighton for lier health. It 
was another bright summer day ; dinner was 
over, and the school-girls and governesses seem- 
ed to have agreed to a truce, and to have come 
out together for an hour's peace and refresh- 
ment on the green overgrown garden at tlie 
back of the house. Jessamines were on the 
walls, and there were spreading trees, under one 
of which the French governess was reading a 
limp Journal des Demoiselles, smelling of hair- 
pins and pomatum from the drawer in which it 
was kept. 

Miss Strumpf, the German governess (she was 
to leave this quarter, it was darkly whispered), 
was eating a small piece of cheese which she 
had saved from her dinner, and a rotten-looking 
medlar she had picked up oft" the grass. Some 
of the girls were dancing a quadrille on the 
lawn ; others were singing and aimlessly rush- 
ing about the space inclosed by the four moss- 
grown walls, against which jessamines, and ja- 
ponicas, and Virginian creepers were growing. 
Rosy and Totty, and a few chosen friends, were 
in a group on the step of the cistern. Totty, 
who was a quaint and funny little girl of ten, 
with a red curly wig, and a great deal of imag- 
ination, was telling a story : her stories were 
very popular among the literary portion of the 
community ; but her heroine came to an un- 



' timely end when the narrator heard who was 
up stairs. 

I Catharine was waiting in the great drawing- 
I room with the many windows and the photo- 
I graph books, and the fancy-work mats presented 
I by retiring pupils, and the wax water-lily on the 
j piece of looking-glass, a tribute from an accom- 
j plished dancing-mistress. She came to meet 
her sisters, looking very pale, with dark rings 
round her eyes. 

"Cathy, Cathy, why do j'ou look so funny?" 
said Totty, clutching her round the waist. 

"Oil, Totty dear," said Cathy, holding the 
children tight to her, and trying not to cry, and 
to speak cheerfully, "I look funny because I am 
going away from Mrs. Butler's. I don't know 
what to do. I want you and Rosy to tell me 
what you think." And then she told them her 
little history in her plaintive voice, holding the 
hands tight — tight in hers. She had dreaded 
so telling them, that, now that it was over, she 
felt happier and almost relieved ; it v.as not 
nearly so bad as she had feared. 

"It is no use asking our aunts," said Rosy; 
"they will write great long letters, and be no 
help at all." 

As for little Totty, she was so indignant with 
Mrs. Butler, so delighted at the promise of a 
whole six weeks' holiday next year to be spent 
alone with Catharine and Rosy in a cottage in 
the air, that she forgot the distance and the sei> 
aration, and bore the news far more bravely 
than Catharine herself. Rosy, who was as tall 
as Catharine nearly, held her hand very tight, 
and did not say much. She was old for her 
age — a downright girl, with more courage than 
poor little Catharine, and a sort of elder sister 
feeling for her, though she was only thirteen. 
But some girls Iiave the motherly element 
strongly developed in them from their veriest 
babyhood, when they nurse their dolls to sleep 
upon their soft little arms, and carefully put 
away the little broken toy because it must be in 
pain. And Rosy was one of these. She was 
not clever, but she seemed to imderstand witii 
her heart what other people felt. She took 
Catliy's aching head in her arms, and laid it on 
her shoulder, and kissed her again and again, as 
a mother might have done. 

"My poor old darling," said Rosy, "don't be 
unhappy at leaving us ; I'll take care of Totty, 
and some day I'll take care of you too." 

"But wliere shall we go to in the holidays?" 
said Totty, cheering up. "Let there be don- 
keys, please." 

Fraulein Strumpf, who was curious by nature, 
happened to peep in at the drawing-room door, 
as slie was passing, to see who the little girls' 
visitor might be. She was rather scandalized 
to see Rosy sitting in a big arm-chair, with her 
visitor kneeling on the floor before her, and Tot- 
ty leaning with straggling legs and drooping 
curls over the arm. It seemed like a liberty, 
in this gray grim drawing-room, to be kneelin 
down on the floor instead of sitting ui)right an 
stiff at intervals upon the liigh-backed chair. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



39 



Even the sunshine came in tlirough the tall 
windows in subdued streaks, playing on the an- 
cient ceiling and the worn-out carpet. The 
three lieads were very close together, and they 
had settled that it was to be a farm-liouse in 
Surrey, where they had once staid before. 

"Do you remember the little wood where 
we picnicked?" said Rosy. "And the farmer's 
cart?" cried Totty, quite happy by this time. 
Catharine had all the troubles of youtli to bear 
on her poor little shoulders, but she had also 
its best consolation. Here she was with tlic 
other two children, almost happy again at the 
thought of a go-cart and a baby-house, and 
some live toys to play with in the fields. 

When she went away the color had come 
back into her cheeks. Rosy and Totty were 
leaning over the old-fashioned tall balcony, and 
kissing their hands. She saw them for many a 
day after, and carried one more vision away with 
her of the quaint old square, with its green gar- 
den, and ancient panes and doorways, of the 
dear, dear little faces smiling through their 
tears, and bidding her good speed. 

She did not trust herself to say good-by to 
them again ; and when Madame de Tracy went 
off in her cab with her maid and her tall gray 
boxes, little Catharine vanished too out of her 
accustomed corner in the school-room, and Frau- 
lein Strumpf reigned in her stead. The morn- 
ing's post brought Catharine two letters, which 
she read in the railway carriage on her way to 
Dover. 

Mutton's Mansion, Oriental Place, Brighton. 

My t)EAR Catharine, — Your letter was for- 
warded to me here from Park Crescent, which I 
left on Tuesday. For the last three weeks I 
had been feeling far from well, and scarcely 
strong enough to bear the exertion of my daily 
drive round the Regent's Park. My appetite 
also had fallen off sadly, and I hardly knew what 
it was to enjoy a meal. My good friend and 
able physician, Dr. Pattie, urgently recommend- 
ed me to try sea air ; and, notwithstanding 
my usual reluctance to move from home, I re- 
solved to follow his advice. Dr. Pattie consid- 
ers that there is nothing equal to sea-bathing 
for strengthening the nerves and tlie appetite, 
and he also has a high opinion of the merits of 
a fish diet, believing it to be exceedingly light 
and nutritive. But the difficulty here, and I 
believe it to be the case in all sea-port towns, 
is to get a variety of fish. I have only twice 
ventured to bathe, and found it very trying ; but 
I must say that I am daily gaining strength, 
and that my appetite has certainly improved, 
although it is not yet all that I could wish. To 
return to your letter. I am truly concerned to 
hear that any thing should have occurred to un- 
settle your plans, and make you think of leaving 
your present excellent situation ; but I am not 
indeed in a fit state of health to be able to offer 
you any advice. Thinking tells so upon my 
nerves, that Dr. Pattie has forbidden me to make 
any exertion of the sort. Your aunt Farebroth- 
or is far better able than I am to take your af- 



Aiirs into consideration, so you had better write 
to her at once, and act upon what she says, at 
the same time using your own judgment in 
what you think best. Ever your affectionate 
aunt, Sophia Buckington. 

Tabor Vill.a, Mount Zion, Tunbridge Wells. 

Mt dearest Niece, — Surrounded as I am 
by duties that to every humble Christian spirit 
stand first and foremost in the path of life, I 
have but little leisure or inclination to attend to 
any thing belonging to this world rather than to 
the next. I am tlie last person to wliom you 
should apply for counsel, except, indeed, in mat- 
ters relating to your spiritual welfare, for I have 
made it a rule never to waste time or thought 
over the trifiing cares of every-day life. My 
sister, Mrs. Buckington, is better versed in world- 
ly wisdom than I am, and I should recommend 
you always to ask and follow her advice in your 
little dilemmas ; but you must not think that I 
am neglectful of you, or that I am not always 
ready to give my poor help in those subjects 
which lie within my field of work and thought. 
Only yesterday I had an opportunity of speak- 
ing long and earnestly about you with my dear 
friend and pastor, Mr. Bland. He and I both 
agreed that should you decide upon going to 
France, the one essential point to be considered 
is whether a young and feeble mind does not 
run a great risk of falling into the too-tempting 
snares of Popery. But then again Mr. Bland 
said, who could tell but that you might be the 
humble means of bringing some of those lost 
sheep to light ! Surely it would be well to be 
provided with a few simple tracts, which you 
could distribute whenever you saw a fitting mo- 
ment. Before you leave London, do not fail to 
go to the Religious Tract Society in Piccadilly, 
and ask for the Rev. Walpole Bland's Tracts for 
home and foreign use. By presenting a card 
of Mr. Bland's that I inclose you, you will get 
them at the reduced rate of half a crown a hund- 
red — a small sum, indeed, for so great a treas- 
ure ! I should also be glad if you would take 
with you to France a little parcel of Irish point 
lace, for which the French ladies (always so fond 
of dress) would, I dare say, like to raffle thirty 
tickets, 12s. Gd. each, for the benefit of the Po- 
lish Protestant colporteurs. 

I shall be glad to hear that you are getting on 
satisfactorily, and believe me, my dear Catha- 
rine, yours affectionately, 

P. G. Fakebrothee. 

Catharine sighed as she folded up the two 
letters and put them into her pocket. It was 
not the first time she had corresponded with her 
step-mother's sisters, but she w-as too sad to take 
things philosophically and to laugh. 

All the way Madame de Tracy was in high 
spirits ; she was delighted to get back to her 
children, to carry off Miss George, to have se- 
cured a pure English accent for Nanine, and 
Henri, and Madelaine. She sat surrounded by 
bags of which the contents seemed to fly from 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



one to the other, like in some one of those con- 
juror's tricks. From bag to bag Madame de 
Tracy and Barbe, her long-suffering attendant, 
pursued a Bradshaw, a rouleau of sovereigns, a 
letter which had arrived that morning, a paper- 
cutter, all of which were captured and replaced 
in their various homes, only to be dispersed and 
hunted for again. 

" Barbe, I have left my parasol in the cab— 
and my purse! We must telegraph. I dis- 
tinctly remember laying it down on the waiting- 
room table. Ah ! what a misfo — " 

" Madame, there it is in your lap," said Bar- 
be, calmly, " and your parasol is behind you." 

"Ah ! what an escape !" sighed Madame de 
Tracy. "The tickets, and more than thirty 
pounds, are in this purse, and I could not possi- 
bly have lost them ; I am utterly ruined, I have 
bought so many things in London. Miss George, 
I see your book wants cutting; give it to me, I 
adore cutting open books. I envy you, you look 
so calm ; you have none of these troublesome 
concerns to attend to — but some one must do 
it. Barbe, where is the paper-cutter?" 

They had started late in the afternoon, and 
were to sleep at Calais, and to go on to Tracy 
the next day. They crossed on a still night 
with a waning moon. Many and many a sad, 
confused thouglit must have come to the little 
traveler by the light of the creaking lamp in 
the cabin. Faces, pictures, all the events of the 
last few weeks, were dancing about in the dark- 
ness ; voices were sounding, the children's faces 
were looking at her out of dark corners. The 
lamp swung on its hinges, the vessel throbbed 
and shook, Catharine felt as if she was, indeed, 
a waif upon a great sea tossed hither and thith- 
er by wayward winds. How oddly distinct the 
voices and images fell upon her brain ; Kitty, 
Cathy, she seemed to hear her little sisters call- 
ing her through the moans of the sea, by all the 
names they liked to give her ; and another voice 
sounded in her foolish little ears, and her last 
few words with Dick seemed to be repeated to 
her by all the rolling waves. 

She had only seen him once after that day at 
Lambswold. Catharine thought it was a cruel 
fate which prevented their meeting. It was 
more likely a sensible precaution. Doors, stairs, 
conventionalisms, had been piled in a great heap 
between them, and there is nothing so hard to 
pass as these simple impediments. The stairs 
are carpeted and easy to climb ; the doors are 
on the latch, with nice china handles to open 
them ; there is nothing to prevent ; and yet 
prison bars have been burst open, burning des- 
erts crossed, icy passes and steep mountains 
scaled and surmounted more easily than these 
simple obstacles. 

There was a train to Paris, Madame de Tracy 
heard on landing, and she determined to go on. 
Catharine cared not. The niglit seemed to her 
like a sort of summary or epilogue to the little 
slice of a life which had belonged to her hither- 
to. Slie sat watching tlie black ghosts of trees, 
and walls, and wayside inns flying past the win- 



dows, the single lights here and there in the dark 
plain, and listening to the voices at the little 
stations, sounding melancholy and sudden as 
voices always do in the dark. 

Her protectress peacefully dreamt through 
the long hours that Catharine watched and 
wondered. What would the day be like that 
had not yet dawned, the new world which await- 
ed her? thought the girl with her wide-open 
shining eyes. Catharine George somehow ex- 
pected that the sun would never rise ; that the 
land would be always dark, and strange, and 
desolate to lier; that she would find herself ut- 
terly alone, and wandering here and there in 
the gloom. . . . 

She forgot in how great a measure one's fu- 
ture is made up of one's past — how we see and 
understand things by all those which have pre- 
ceded them — how it is yesterday which makes 
to-morrow. The future is never so strange as 
we picture it to ourselves. A hundred golden 
threads bind us to it already. It is all one's 
whole past life which claims the future and 
draws it into itself. The lesson given long, 
long ago by the love which foresaw, teaches in 
after years when the occasion has come. One 
thing recalls another, as one thing forebodes an- 
other, and sometimes the two together make a 
full chord of happiness, or maybe of sadness, so 
grateful and so sweet, that it seems as if it must 
be happiness. 

At any rate, when the next day came, Catha- 
rine found that instead of creeping slowly along, 
all gray and black, and dark and terrible, the 
future had come for her with a cheery clatter, 
and crack of whips, and blowing of horns, friend- 
ly faces looking out, a barking of dogs, some 
one to help her up the steps, as with cheerful con- 
fusion, and noise and jingle, they start through 
the bright light streets and cross the fertile jjlains 
of Normandy. 

They had all finished dinner at Tracy, and 
were sitting about in the great drawing-room. 
The mufiled piano stood in the middle of the 
room ; the lani]js were placed here and there ; 
the polished floors were only covered by little 
square carpets, sprinkled sparsely about. Two 
rows of pink-stri])ed chairs stood in lines from 
the firej)hice, over which the Tracys had erect- 
ed a tall and elaborately-carved chimney-piece. 
The furniture of the castle corresponded in date 
to the mahogany reign of terror in England, 
but in France at that period all was harmony 
and fitness, and you need dread no four-post 
beds at Tracy, no fierce sideboards, no glower- 
ing washstands and looming wardrobes. 

The old clock over the chimney was ticking 
nine o'clock, the windows were open upon a sea 
of moonlight in the garden. There were glasses 
and bottles upo"n a side-table, where Marthe de 
Coetlogon, Ernestine's sister, was playing dom- 
inoes with the cure, who had been asked to din- 
ner. Monsieur de Tracy and Monsieur Fon- 
taine, who had also had the honor of being in- 
j vited, were smoking in the moonlit alleys of the 
garden. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



Mademoiselle de Coetlogonhad a sweet, plac- 
id face, over which a smile would break now and 
then — not very often. She sat there in her 
long white dress, with her soft hair tied up sim- 
ply, with a blue ribbon, and the light of the lamp 
falling upon her face and the old cure"s bald 
head. It seemed incongruous, somehow, that 
slie should be playing dominoes, with that Ma- 
donna-like head— still and tender at once. She 
luid been vowed to the Virgin by her father 
from the day slie was born. Her life had been 
saved by a miracle, it was said, and Marthe grew 
up strong and well, but never like other people. 
She had a vocation from her earliest youth ; 
never changed her mind or faltered for one min- 
ute. She was four- and -twenty now. In a 
year she would be of an age, according to the 
French law, to decide for herself. No one could 
influence her: not Jean, who could not bear the 
subject named before him ; not her mother, a 
widow, who, wistful, half timid, half angry, scold- 
ed, entreated, cried, and implored and forbade 
in vain. Ernestine, her sister, was the only one 
of them who did not really object ; on the con- 
trary, such devotion seemed to reflect a certain 
credit on the family. But all the same ; Ma- 
dame de Tracy, at her mother's desire, did her 
best to distract her sister from her intentions by 
taking Marthe all one year into the world. Ma- 
dame de Coetlogon, too, accompanied her daugh- 
ter. Toilettes, partis, music, gayeties of every 
description, poor Marthe endured in patience ; 
but all these well-meant distractions had a very 
different effect to that which the poor mother 
hoped and longed for. 

It seems strange to us commonplace, com- 
mon-sense Protestant people, in these days of 
commonplace and common sense, living in the 
rough and ready world of iron, of progress, of 
matter of fact, to hear of passionate revival, and 
romance, and abstract speculation, to be told of 
the different experiences of living beings now 
existing together. While the still women go 
gliding along their convent passages to the 
sound of the prayer-bells, with their long veils 
hanging between them and the coarse, hard 
world of every day, the vulgar, careworn toilers, 
the charwomen and factory hands of life are at 
their unceasing toil, amid squalor, and grime, 
and oaths, and cruel denseness ; the hard-work- 
ed mothers of sickly children are slaving, day 
after day, m common lodging-houses, feeding on 
hard fare, scraps and ends from the butchers' 
shops, or refuse and broken victuals from some 
rich neighbor's kitchen ; while others, again, 
warmed and fed in the body, wearing and starv- 
ing mentally, are struggling through passionate 
sorrow and privation. . . . 

Are work and suffering the litanies of some 
lives, one wonders? are patience, and pain, and 
humiliation, the fasts and the penances of oth- 
ers ? No veils hang between the hard, brazen 
faces and the world ; no convent bars inclose 
them other than the starting, ill-built brick walls 
of their shabby homes and lodging-places. But 
who shall say that the struggles, the pangs, 



prayers, outcries of all these women, differently 
expressed and experienced though they are, do 
not go up together in one common utterance to 
that place where there is pity for the sorrowful 
and compassion for the weary? 

Dick Butler, who had a tender heart himself, 
said one day, smoking his pipe, to some one who 
had cried out that she could not understand 
how the good God who made the little ones so 
pretty and so touching could bear to hear them 
weep for pain, "People seern to think themselves 
in some ways superior to Heaven itself when 
they complain of the sorrow and want round 
about them. And yet it is not the Devil for 
certain who puts pity into their hearts." 

It is vain to try to answer such questions, but 
it is difficult not to wonder and speculate, as ev- 
ery day one sees stranger and subtler contrasts 
and forms of life. There is the good mother of 
the family— useful, busj', happy, bright-eyed and 
light-hearted, approaching her home, of which 
the shimmer seems to cheer and warm her as 
she sees it gleaming from a distance. There is 
the forlorn little traveler from Jerusalem whose 
wounds have been bound up with wine and oil, 
coming in her charge to the inn. 

On the sofa, like a little lady out of Watteau, 
eating bonbons, sits young Madame de Tracy, 
occasionally smiling at the good old curc''s com- 
pliments. She is a graceful young woman, with 
bright blue eyes, with a plaintive expression ; 
and as she really has every thing in the world 
slie wishes for, no wonder she is dissatisfied. 
Her life lies before her quite smooth, flat, unin- 
teresting, all sunshine, and not a bit of shade 
any where, except what she can make for her- 
self by raising an occasional storm, and, fortu- 
nately, her temper is easily upset. 

Ernestine dressed charmingly in white, and 
lilac, and pink ; she left blue ribbons to Marthe. 
She was very graceful in all her movements, 
even when she was angry. Her husband was a 
plain, good-natured-looking man, with a ribbon 
in his button-hole, and a hooked eye-glass. He 
was very rich, and gave her every thing she 
liked, and attended very patiently to all her re- 
proaches. Ernestine liked him, and M'as proud 
of his abilities and indignant at bis want of am- 
bition. She was very proud also of her blue 
eyes, which she inherited from her mother ; and 
as she did not bury her talents in a najikin, they 
were very much admired in the world at Paris, 
where she had an apartment, all full of great 
vases and cabinets, in which she spent her win- 
ters. In the spring and the summer she came 
down to her mother-in-law's house. 

Madame Jean de Tracy was just popping a 
chocolate bonbon into her mouth when her hus- 
band and M. Fontaine came in from the garden. 

"Madame, we have just seen a carriage turn 
into the long avenue," said M. Fontaine, hast- 
ening to tell the news ; "we surmise that it may 
be madame votre belle-mere returning." 

"It is certain to be her," cried Ernestine; 
" she told us not to expect her ; and it is so late 
too." 



42 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIiT. 



" It is no use going to meet her; she will be 
here directly," said Jean, walking to the door in 
his deliberate way. 

Almost directly there was a sound of voices, 
of exclamations — the cook, the valet-de-cham- 
bre, Sidonie, Madame Jean's maid, appeared to 
announce the safe arrival of the travelers. A 
couple of dogs came in barking — even the chil- 
dren's bonne came rushing down from up stairs ; 
the game of dominoes was interrupted; Jean 
embraced his mother very aifectionately as she 
entered the room ; Fontaine hovered about, 
deeply interested in the meeting, and hastened 
to relieve Madame de Tracy of her parasol ; par- 
cels were wildly handed about like buckets at a 
conflagration ; then came more embraces, expla- 
nations, and exclamations. "You never came 
to meet me. I forgot to post my letter. Casi- 
mir brought us up in his little carriage." "Un- 
fortunately we have dined. There is sure to be 
something. Bon jour, Barbe, here you are re- 
turned from England !" "We nearly did not 
get home at all ; old Chre'tien ran his cart up 
against us. He was quite tipsy. Oh, I am 
sure of it. Give us sometliing to eat, for I am 
famished." All this in a crescendo, whicli was 
brought to a climax by a sudden shriek from 
Madame Jean. 

*' Who is that in the window ?" she cried, 
pointing. " Look, there is somebody ;" and she 
seized her husband's arm. 

" I am really too forgetful. Come here, my 
dear child," cried Madame de Tracy. "Here 
is my dear young friend, Miss George, Ernes- 
tine ; I have persuaded her to come back with 
me." 

At this incantation the little apparition who 
had been standing clasping her great Avarm 
shawl, and childishly absorbed in the scene, 
wondering who each person could be, advanced 
blushing, with ruffled hair, and trailing her long 
draperies. She looked up into their faces with 
that confiding way she had. Madame Jean 
made her a little inclination ; Jean came up and 
good-naturedly shook hands a I'Amjlaise; Mon- 
sieur Fontaine, parasol in hand, bowed pro- 
foundly. Tired as she was, hungry, preoccupied 
by her return home, an idea flashed through 
Madame de Tracy's fertile mind at that instant, 
which, alas ! unlike many of her ideas, she was 
destined to put into execution. 

" Monsieur Fontaine, our excellent maire," 
said she, going on with her introductions ; 
"Mademoiselle de Coiitlogon, M. I'Abbe Ver- 
dier. Ernestine we will give Miss George the 
yellow room, and some supper. My dear child, 
I am dying of hunger. I have eaten nothing 
but little tartlets all day." 

The tartlets, the chateau, the moonlight, the 
ladies, the whole journey, seemed to come out 
of the Arabian Nights, Catharine thought, only 
the abbe' did not belong to them. The quiet 
little old man, sitting in the corner, caused a 
thrill to tills stern Protestant of which he was 
happily unconscious. 

Catharine and her protectress supped in the 



great dining-room — a long and lofty room, with 
a fine ceiling, and many tall windows, barred 
and shuttered. The one lamp only lighted tlie 
table, where cold meat, and cream cheese, and 
a melon and grapes were spread. Jean accom- 
panied them, and so did Ernestine, who flung a 
pretty white hood over her head, and sat watch- 
ing them at their meal. 

" And your grandmother, how is she ?" asked 
Madame de Tracy of her son. 

"She is as usual," said Jean; "she has 
heard of yoin- return, and Baptiste has just come 
down to ask for a little supper for her from 
your table. Miss George, you do not eat. You 
must get a good appetite at Tracy. I hope you 
are going to stay with us for some time." 

Again Catharine blushed up, and looked from 
her host to the little lady with the bright eyes. 
"I thought — I hoped," she stammered — 

" We have got her safe," interrupted Madame 
de Tracy, flurriedly, carving away at a cold 
chicken. "We are not going to part from 
her." Poor lady, her courage was failing her 
somewhat. She did not like the looks Madame 
Jeane was casting at her little protegee. She 
made haste to send Catharine to bed as soon as 
she had done her supper. Baptiste with a can- 
dle, and Barbe, were both deputed to show Miss 
George the way up the broad stone stairs, with 
curiously-scrolled iron railings, along a great 
stone passage, dark with shadows, and with 
windows at intervals looking on the moonlit 
court-yard. Their footsteps echoed, and their 
moon-shadows flitted along with them. Catha- 
rine looked out once, and saw a figure crossing 
the court. The iron gates opened to let it out, 
and she recognized the tall dark gentleman 
they had called Monsieur Fontaine. "I im- 
agined he was Monsieur de Tracy when I first 
came in," Catharine thought. "They were 
both very kind." 

"What is that distant noise?" she asked 
Barbe, as she followed her up moi'e stairs and 
passages. 

"That is the sound of the sea, mademoi- 
selle," said Barbe. "We hear it very well 
from here when the wind blows in this direc- 
tion." 

Catharine dreamt of the sea that night, of 
her journey, of the abbe and Monsieur Fon- 
taine, of Beamish, playing his marches and 
sonatas in Dick's studio. She dreamt that she 
heard the music even, and then, soniehow, she 
herself was playing, and they were all listening 
to her ; but the notes would not strike — in vain 
she tried — she could bring forth no sound ; and 
the sea came nearer and nearer all the time, 
and the waves flowed in tune. It was a horri- 
ble dream, though when she awoke there was 
nothing much in it. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



43 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The tide which sways between the two great 
shores of England and of France sometimes 
beats against our chalk cliffs, which spread in 
long low lines gleaming tranquilly in the sun, 
while the great wave-armies roll up with thun- 
dering might to attack them; sometimes it 
rushes over the vast sand-plains and sand-hills, 
the dunes and the marshes of France, spreading 
and spreading until its fury of approach is spent, 
and then perhaps, as the sun begins to set, and 
the sky to clear, suddenly the water stills and 
brightens, and the fishing-boats put out to sea 
with the retiring tide. Some people living on 
the shores listen to the distant moan of the wa- 
ters as they roll and roll away; some are so 
used by long custom that they scarcely heed the 
sad echoing. But others are never accustom- 
ed. One woman has told me that for jears 
after slie first came to live in her husband's 
house by the sea, the consciousness of its moan 
never left her. She never could grow used to 
it. It haunted her in her sleep, in her talk, in 
her daily occupations. She thought at one 
time she should go mad if the sound did not 
cease ; it would die away into the distance, 
and then come rolling nearer and louder, with 
passionate sobs and sudden moans, and the wild, 
startling, discordant cries of the water-birds. 
She had a foolish superstition that she should 
be happy when she ceased to hear the moan of 
the sea. 

What is this strange voice of Nature that 
says with one utterance so many unlike things ? 
Is it that we only hear the voice of our own 
hearts in the sound of the waves, in the sad 
cries of birds as they fly, of animals, the shiver- 
ing of trees, the creaking and starting of the 
daily familiar things all about their homes ? 

This echo of the sea, which to some was a 
complaint and a reproach, was to Reine Chre'- 
tien like the voice of a friend and teacher — of a 
religion almost. There are images so natural 
and simple that they become more than mere 
images and symbols; and to her, when she 
looked at the gleaming immensity, it was al- 
most actually and in truth to her the great sea, 
upon the shores of which we say we are as chil- 
dren playing with the pebbles. It was her 
formula. Her prayers went out unconsciously 
toward the horizon, as some pray looking to- 
Avard heaven, in the words which their fathers 
have used; and some pray by the pains they 
suffer ; and some by the love which is in them ; 
and some, again, without many words, pray in 
their lives and their daily work, but do not often 
put into actual phrases and periphrases the story 
of their labors, and weariness, and effort. The 
other children on the shore are sometimes at va- 
riance with these latter in their play ; for while 
they are all heaping up their stores of pebbles, 
and stones, and shells, and building strange fan- 
tastic piles, anddrawing intricate figures upon the 
sand, and busily digging foundations which the 



morning tides come and sweep away, suddenly 
they seem to grow angry, and they wrathfully 
pick up the pebbles and fling them at one an- 
other, wounding, and cutting, and bruising with 
the sharp edges. 

How long ago is it since the children at their 
play were striking the flints together to make 
fii-es to burn the impious ones who dared to 
point to the advancing tides and say. See, they 
come to wash away your boundaries. The ad- 
vancing tides, thanks be to God, have in their 
turn put out those cruel fires ;'but sharp stones 
still go flying through the air, and handfuls of 
sand, and pebbles, and long, straggling bunches 
of sea- weed that do no great harm, perhaps, but 
which sting and draggle where they fall. 

Reine, on her sea-shore, picked up her stones 
with the rest of us, and carefully treasured the 
relics which she inherited from her mother, the 
good Catholic, since whose death her life would 
have been a sad one if it had not been so full 
of small concerns of unintermitting work. She, 
too, like the other woman of whom I have been 
writing, heard the sound of the sea as she went 
about her daily occupations, but to Reine it 
seemed like the supplement and encouragement 
of her lonely life. She listened to it as she 
went her rounds from the great kitchen to the 
outer boundaries of the farm, across the or- 
chards and fields to the garden a mile off where 
her beans were growing, or sometimes sitting, 
resting by the blazing hearth, where the wood 
was heaped and the dried colza grass flaring. 

Heine's religion was that in Avhich she had 
been brought up from a child. Her mother 
professed the same faith as the Marions, and tlie 
Sabeaus, and the Picards of the place. She 
had used the same words and outward signs as 
her husband until his death — as old Pierre 
Chretien, the grandfather — but their sense was 
not the same. The old grandfather, in his 
blouse, rather avoided contemplating the future. 
He had a pretty clear idea of a place not un- 
like the chapel of the Deliverande, only larger, 
with statuettes at intervals, and Monsieur le 
Cure triumphant. It was more comfortable, on 
the whole, to retire to the kitchen of the Golden 
Sun, where Pe'lottier dispensed cider and good 
wine at twopence a bottle, and from whence 
Pierre's granddaughter, with angry, dogged eyes, 
had fetched him away on more, than one occa- 
sion : a terrible apparition in her beauty and her 
indignation. The children themselves would 
fly before her on such occasions, and they were 
generally her best friends. 

Reine was one of those people whose inner 
life works upon their outer life, and battles with 
it. She had inherited her mother's emotionid 
nature, and her father's strong and vigorous 
constitution. Slie Mas strong where her moth- 
er had been weak. She had thoughts and in- 
tuitions undreamt of by those among whom she 
lived. But things went crossways with her, and 
she suffered from it. She was hard and rough 
at times, and had not that gentleness and open- 
I ness which belong to education and to culture. 



44 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



Beyond tlie horizon dawned for her the king- 
dom of saints and martyrs, for which her moth- 
er before her had longed as each weary day 
went by ; the kingdom where, for the poor wom- 
an, the star-crowned Qneen of Heaven reigned 
with pitiful eyes. Keine did not want pity or 
compassion as yet. Siie was a woman Avith love 
in her heart, but she was not tender, as some 
are, or long-suflfering : she was not unselfish, as 
others who abnegate and submit until nothing 
remains but a soulless body, a cataleptic subject 
mesmerized by ti stronger will. She was not 
humble, easily entreated, unsuspicious of evil. 
The devil and his angels had sown tares enough 
in her heart to spring up in the good soil thick, 
and rank, and abundant; only it was good soil 
in whicli they were growing, and in which the 
grain of mustard-seed would spring up too, and 
become a great tree in time, with wide-spread- 
ing branches, although the thick weeds and pois- 
onous grasses were tangling in a wilderness at 
its root. 

Keine on her knees, under the great arch of 
Bayeux Cathedral, with the triumphant strains 
of the anthem resounding in her ears, would 
have seemed to some a not unworthy type of 
the Peasant Girl of Domremy, in 'Lorraine. As 
the music rung higher and shriller, tlie vibra- 
tions of the organ filled the crowded edifice. 
Priests stood at the liigh altar celebrating their 
mysteries ; the incense was rising in streams 
from the censers ; people's heads' went bending 
lower and lower ; to Reine a glory seemed to fill 
the place like the glory of the pink cloud in the 
Temple, and the heavens of her heart were un- 
folded. The saints and visions of her dim im- 
aginations had no high commands for their 
votaiy ; they did not bid her deliver her coun- 
try, but sent her home to her plodding ways and 
her daily task, moved, disturbed, with a gentler 
fire in her eye, and with the soft chord in her 
voice stirred and harmonizing its harsher tone. 

Heine's voice was a peculiar one, and must 
liave struck any one hearing it for the first 
time. It rung odd, sudden, harmonious, with a 
sort of jar in it, or chord. Voices of this qual- 
ity are capable of infinite modulation. Some- 
times they soften into gay yet melancholy mu- 
sic, like Mozart's, of which they always remind 
me ; sometimes they harden into the roughest 
and iciest of discordant accents. 

She liked going back by herself, after the 
service was over, quietly across the plain. She 
was strong, and the three miles to Tracy, skirt- 
ing the road and the corn-fields, were no fatigue 
to her, especially in the summer, when the corn 
was waving gold, and tlie blue bright flowers 
and the poppies blazed among tlie tall yellow 
stalks. Sometimes Reine would ride back on 
her donkey. This was when she stopped at a 
low long house with windows opening on the 
street at the entrance of the town, at the door 
of which she would find poor Annette waiting 
patiently, tied to a ring in the wall. 

On these occasions Reine would go to the 
window and call out in her kindest voice, "Eh 



bien, Madame Marteau, am I to have Josette 
to-day to come and play with the little chick- 
ens?" 

Josette was Reine's goddaughter, who had 
been christened Josephine Marine Reine des 
Cieux, after her "marraine." She was a tiny 
little girl, with two round eyes, and a little tight 
black cap tied under her chin, and a little black 
stuff jiinafore and trowsers to match. Reine 
was fond of the child, and charming with her. 
She was one of those people who are like angels 
when they protect and take care of others, and 
who are hard, ungrateful, suspicious, unjust, to 
those to whom they are obliged to look up. 

On this particular Sunday, while the luncheon 
trays were steaming into the dining-room in 
Eaton Square, with Dick driving up to the door 
in a hansom, and Mr. Butler still rustling the 
Observer in his study ; while Beamish and Cath- 
arine were slowly walking home from church, 
and little Catharine, who had preceded them, 
was standing all by herself in the school-room, 
vacantly plaiting and unplaiting the tassel of 
the blind, and pulling the ragged ends, and 
thinking of the future looming darkly — it was 
her last day in the dismal little bastile ; and, 
now that the end was come, she looked back 
with a child's passion of persistence and longing 
to the threads and straws with which she had 
beguiled her time — while all this was going on 
in one small corner of the world, in another 
Reine was pulling out her strong arms, and 
lifting little Josette on to the donkey's back. 

Josette's mother — a care-worn woman in 
shabby clothes — was standing in the sun, shad- 
ing her diiTimed eyes : the light dazzled poor 
Madame Marteau. Her life was spent in a 
sort of twilight gloom, nursing the bedridden 
husband whose voice even now might be heard 
muttering and calling from an inner room. 
The poor woman looked on with a glimpse of 
pleasure in her sad face, grateful to Reine for 
carrying off the little maiden into a wholesome, 
bright atmosphere, where there were flowers 
growing, and little chickens running about, and 
a little boy to play with sometimes, to a place 
where Josette expanded with delight in all the 
glory of childhood, instead of being dwarfed 
into a precocious little woman by Pere Mar- 
teau's railings and scoldings. 

"Well, Josette, what does one say?" said 
Madame Marteau. 

"Bo zour, marraine," lisped Josette, hang- 
ing her head, and pretending to be shy. 

"Josette is coming home with me," said 
Reine, "to see Bclette and Mine, and to ask 
Petitpere to give her some brioche," to all of 
which propositions Josette nodded her head. 
And then she said something which sounded 
like J'allonsvoirletitoto. 

"They begin soon enough," said Madame 
Marteau, shrugging her weary shoulders. " She 
is always talking about le petit Toto. M. Fon- 
taine must take care. . . ." 

Here, like a distant roll of musketry, came a 
vollev of r-r-r's from the inner room. Reine 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



4r. 



frowned and turned away. Madame Marteau 
hastily nodded good-by and passed in, disap- 
pearing into the gloom, while Keine and little 
Josette rode on together through the sunlit 
fields. 

Josette had her wish, and Toto was allowed 
to come and spend the day with her. Toto's 
grandmother favored Mademoiselle Chrc'tien, 
and never denied her requests. The two chil- 
dren dined with Keine and her fatlier in the 
great dark form-kitchen. They had soup with 
bread in it, and cider, and stewed beef and cab- 
bage, and as much galette as they could eat. 
Eeine took care of them and old Chre'tien ; she 
poured out the cider, and went away herself to 
fetch a particular dish of eggs which her grand- 
father liked. Dominique dined with theni too. 
The great dog came marching in thi'ough the 
open door ; the cocks and hens came and peep- 
ed at them. Outside it was all sunny and still ; 
inside there was galette and two pretty little 
plates and tumblers for the children to use, and 
all Reine's treasures — brooches, and rosaries, 
and reliquaries — for them to play with after 
dinner, and Eeine herself bustling about with 
her gold earrings bobbing as she bent over the 
table. But she was silent, although she at- 
tended to them all, and she looked at the door 
once and sighed. 

Old Chre'tien joked her, and asked Domi- 
nique what was the matter. Eeine answered 
short and quick. For one thing, the thought 
of that poor woman's wretchedness oppressed 
her. "I name no names because of the chil- 
dren," she said, "but it seems to me it must be 
like a hell upon eurth to be chained to wild 
beasts, as some women are." 

"And that is why she don't marry," said 
old Chrc'tien to Dominique, filling his glass. 
"Well, Ave all please ourselves! I have seen 
more than one ill-assorted couple in my time. 
. . . Here in this very room. ..." 

Eeine flushed up. "Now, children, make 
haste," She said, in her harsh, quick voice. 
"Dominique ! you will be here. I shall come 
back in an hour. Petitpere, here is your pipe 
already lighted." And then, taking one child 
by each hand, she dragged them away across 
the great deserted-looking court, and out at the 
arched gateway into the road, and into a tall 
hay-field which skirted it. Paris, the great 
dog, came too, and Eeine pulled a book out of 
her pocket and sank down in the hay, wliile 
the two little things, hand in hand, swam and 
struggled through the tall grasses. Their heads 
only overtopped the hay by a very little. Toto 
made way, and valiantly knocked down a mar- 
gue'ritc which stood in Josette's way, and chased 
away a bluebottle which frightened her with 
its noises. Josette laughed, and capered, and 
danced on fier little stout boots. 

"Oil, the waves, the waves!" cried Toto, as 
a soft wind came blowing from afitr, bending 
the tall grass and the flower-heads, and shak- 
ing a few apples off the branches of the tree 
where Eeine was sitting. " Come and fish for 



the apples," said she, smiling, as the two little 
creatures came tumbling and pushing througli 
the deep sea of hay. 

Monsieur de Tracy from the chateau happen- 
ed to be passing along the high-road at that in- 
stant, and he, too, smiled good-naturedly and 
took oflfhis hat. 

"Bon jour, Mademoiselle Chre'tien," he said. 
"Are you not afraid of spoiling your hay?" 

Eeine scarcely acknowledged his greeting; 
she looked fierce and defiant, and gave a little 
stiff" nod, and went on reading a book. 

"Is not that M. Fontaine's little boy?" said 
Jean, stopping and looking at the trio among 
the sweet dry grasses and flowers. The chil- 
dren were peeping at him bright-eyed and in- 
terested from a safe distance. Eeine never lift- 
ed her eyes off her book: "Marie, qui avez 
mene une vie simple et laborieuse, priez pour 
moi afin que j'apprenne a me contenter de pen 
do chose et a travailler selon les devoirs de ma 
condition," she was murmuring to herself, and 
she did not cease her pious exercise until M. de 
Tracy had walked on. 

" I wonder why that girl always behaves so 
strangely ?" thought Jean, as he walked away. 
"Can my mother have vexed her in any way? 
I must ask my wife." 

Madame Jean held up her pretty little hands 
at the question. 

" ]\Ion ami, it is not I who would like to an- 
swer for what your mother may or may not 
have said," laughed she. 

But Madame de Tracy had said nothing, and 
indeed she was a favorite with the people all 
about. They laughed at her flightiness and ex- 
pansiveness, mistrusted her promise, but they 
could not help liking her. Eeine took to her 
more kindly than to the rest of the family ; all 
her worst self would come up when she was 
brought in contact with these people, who came 
stepping down from their superior grandeur to 
be intrusively civil to those who did not want 
them. "What docs he mean by his Mademoi- 
selle Chre'ticns, and eye-glasses, and polite- 
ness?" thought the foolish girl. "I know well 
enough at what rate he holds us, and I try to 
tell him so in my way." Eeine was not a bad 
girl, but the sight of all this prosperity turned 
her sour. " ' How do you do? Take care of 
your hay' — INIadame Jean's maddening little 
nod as she trips in her Paris toilette, and Ma- 
demoiselle Martha's great blue eyes — it all of- 
fends me, "said Eeine, cutting the matter short. 

This was the class to which her mother be- 
longed. These were the men and the women 
who had cast her off — never forgiven her — for- 
gotten her utterly. These were the people who 
would do the same to-morrow again ; who would 
insult her and scorn her, as they had scorned 
her mother before her, for all her beauty, and 
good blood, and wealth, if — if she were not firm 
to a certain resolve she had made. No, she 
would never marry, never, never. Not if he 
came back again and again to ask her. Eeine 
had an instinct about the person of whom the 



46 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



was thinking. Slie believed that no one whom ] 
she loved could help loving her ; but she was 
proud at the same time. She knew her own . 
worth, and a poor, struggling painter, with all 
his education, did not seem to her any very bril- 
liant match for an heiress like herself, with the i 
blood of the D'Argouges in lier veins, and the ^ 
farms at Tracy, at Petitport, the oyster-parks at 
Courseulles, the houses at Bayeux, for her dow- 
er. " Venez, mes enfants," said Koine, shut- 
ting up her prayer-book when the hour was 
over, and leading them back by the way she 
had come under the archway across the great 
court, where Paris was lying stretched out like 
a lion in the sun, and where Heine looked to 
find her grandfather on the bencii where he was 
accustomed to smoke his afternoon pipe. There 
was only Dominique on the bench stretched out 
on his back at full length. 

Reine went up and shook him angrily. 
"Dominique, are you not ashamed to sleep 
like a sluggard? Where is Petitpeve?" 

Dominique sat up and rubbed his eyes. " He 
is asleep in the kitchen," said he, hazarding the 
statement. 

" Ah !" cried Reine, taking one step forward, 
and looking through the barred window, "he is 
not in the kitchen. You know as well as I do 
where he is gone." 

While Dominique and the children were hav- 
ing a game in front of the farm-gates, which 
made the old place echo with Toto's screams of 
laughter, Reine was marching down the little 
village street, tall, erect, with her terrible face 
on. Poor Reine ! poor Petitpere ! He was 
discoursing very happily and incoherently in 
one of the little bowers at the back of the 
Golden Sun. A very little of M. Pc'Iottier's 
cider was enough to change the aspect of things 
for poor old Chretien. He was treating every 
body, and oifering his granddaughter in mar- 
riage to another old gentleman in a blouse, sit- 
ting at the same little table. 

" Je te I'accorde," said pere Chretien, "avec 
ses cent cinquante mille livres de rente. Mon 
ami Barbeau, elle est a toi." 

" Merci bien, mon ami," said Barbeau, thump- 
ing tlie little wooden table. 

"Et Madame Barbeau, what will she think 
of the arrangement ?" said a countrywoman, 
who was sitting at the next table, looking 
round grinning. 

Barbeau looked puzzled. "Ma femme?" 
said he. "Le pere Chre'tien se charge de tout. 
Buvons a sa sante'!" 

It was at this instant that the bottle was sud- 
denly wrenched out of poor old Chre'tien's trem- 
bling hand, and that Reine, pale and with black 
eyes gleaming, took him by the arm in her un- 
flinching gripe. 

"Come," she said, with a glance of indigna- 
tion at the people who were grinning all round 
about under Pc'Iottier's little vine bower, and she 
walked away back toward Tracy with her pris- 
oner. Old Chretien shambled beside her in 
silence ; he knew her too well to attempt to 



make conversation under the circumstances. 
Only once a sort of groan escaped her. As 
they were turning the corner by the church, 
again she came upon the whole community of 
Tracys — Jean and his wife, and his wife's 
brother and sister, and the three children run- 
ning on ahead. 

Old Chretien attempted a low, uncertain bow. 
Reine thought she saw them smile. She gave 
one fierce glance and walked on : her heart was 
beating with indignation, with pride and pas- 
sionate shame. They scorned her and her 
grandfather. Their glances, their laughter 
maddened her. There she was, condemned 
for life to live with a few tipsy men and vulgar 
dull women, who saw no shame in their lius- 
bands' degradation. There were those people 
born into an atmosphere of light and refinement. 
What had they done, what had she done, to de- 
serve such happiness, such misery ? Why was 
she not like the rest of her class ? Poor grand- 
father — poor old man, he was only what he had 
been taught to be from his earliest youth : his 
servile bow to the grandees from the castle, what 
was tliat but a part and parcel of the rest ? She 
turned to him with a sudden tender impulse of 
pity and protection, and yet all the time a fierce 
impatience and anger were tearing at the wom- 
an's heart ; as she walked along the dusty road, 
she stamped her foot in the dust once. 

"Comme elle est en colere, cette Reine," 
whispered Marion Lefebvre, who saw them 
pass. "Le pauvre pere Chre'tien, she leads 
him a rude life." 

Poor Reine, she was wrong to be angry, to 
be impatient, to wish for the things which only 
time and silent progress can bring about. Like 
many another before her, she was a little in 
advance of her days, and of the people among 
whom she lived ; and the price people are con- 
demned to pay for being somewhat ahead of 
their neighbors is a heavy one. 



CHAPTER IX. 

REINE IN HEIi FARM-TARD. 

Catharine found herself transported, as if 
by magic, from the long, dreary, brick-inclosed 
bowers to a charming world, where vine garlands 
wei-e wreathing under cloudless skies. There 
was at once more light, more sound, more senti- 
ment and drowsy peace in it than she had ever 
known in all her life before. She awakened to 
a dazzle streaming through the vine round her 
window, and flickering upon the red brick floor 
of her little room ; to a glitter, to a cheerful vi- 
bration of noises. Some one would bring her 
a little roll and a cup of steaming coffee, and 
then, when she was dressed, the children would 
come tapping and fumbling at her door. Little 
Henri de Tracy sometimes attempted a re'veille'e 
upon his horn, which would be instantly sup- 
pressed by a voice outside. Nanine, who was 
nine years old, and had elegant little manners 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



47 




like a lady, would wish Catharine good-morning; 
and Madelaine, who was foui' and "tres raison- 
nable," Suzanne her nurse said, consented to be 
kissed through the iron-work balusters of the 
staircase. 

The children would lead the way through the 
great dining-room, where Baptiste was hopping 
about on one leg, polisliing the shining floor, 
across the terrace, through green avenues and 
gardens, looking a little neglected, but fresh with 
dew, and luxuriant with flowers and fruit-trees. 
Pumpkins, carnations, and roses were growing 
between vine-clad walls. There were bees, and 
there was an old stone well full of deep water, 
like Jocelyn's well — 

Dont la chaine rouilloe a poli la margelle, 
Et qu'uue vigne etrelnt de sa verte dpntelle. 

From the terrace there was a distant view of 
the sea — of the blue line of the horizon flashing 
beyond the golden corn-fields. 

One morning Nanine said, " We are to go to 
the Ferme, Miss George, to-day, with a commis- 
sion from grandmamma. We will go out at the 
door in the Potager, if you'd not mind, and come 
back the other way." It was all the same to 
Catharine, who followed her little conductors 
through the kitchen-garden door out into the 
open country, and along the path skirting the 
corn-fields which spread to the sea. Henri went 
first, blowing his horn ; Nanine loitered to pick 
the poppies and bleu-bleus, as she called the 
corn-flowers ; Madelaine trotted by Catharine, 
holding her hand. It was like the nursery 
rhyme. Miss George thought of the little boy 
blue, only the sheep were wanting. 

From outside the farm at Tracy still looks 
more like a ruined fortress than a farm where 
milk is sold in cans, and little pats of butter pre- 
pared, and eggs counted out in dozens, and pigs 
fattened for the market. All over Normandv 



you come upon these fortified abbayes, built for 
praying and fighting once, and ruined now, and 
turned to diflferent uses. It is like Samson's 
riddle to see the carcass of the lions with honey 
flowing from them. " Out of the eater came 
forth meat ; out of the strong came forth sweet- 
ness." There is a great archway at the farm at 
Tracy, with heavy wooden doors studded with 
nails. There is rust in plenty, and part of a 
moat still remaining. The hay is stacked in 
what was a chapel once; the yellow trusses are 
hanging through the crumbling flamboyant east 
window. There is a tall watch-tower, to which 
a pigeon-cote has been affixed, and low cloisters 
that are turned into out-houses and kitchens. 
The white walls tell a story of penance and 
fierce battlings, which are over now, as far as 
they are concerned. The great harvest wagons 
pass through the archway without unloading; 
so do the cows at milking-time. Cocks and 
hens arepecketing tlie fallen grains, the pigeons 
circle overhead suddenly white against the sky. 

As the children and Miss George pushed open 
the heavy doors and came into the wide sunny 
court, a figure descended the stone steps leading 
from the strong tower where the apples are kept. 
It was Reine in her white coiffe, who advanced 
with deliberate footsteps, carrying an earthen- 
ware pan under her arm, and who stood waiting 
in the middle of the great deserted-looking 
place until they should come up to her. 

Catharine wondered whether all Normandy 
peasant-girls were like this one. It was a prin- 
cess keeping the cows. There she stood, straight, 
slender, vigorous; dressed in the Sunday dress 
of the women of those parts, with this difference, 
that instead of two plastered loops of hair like a 
doll's, a tawny ripple flowed under the lace of 
her cap and low over her arched brows. As for 
her eyes, they were quick, dancing gray eyes, 
that looked black when she was angry — clouds 
and lightning somebody once told her they were, 
but the lightning became warm sunlight when 
she smiled upon those she liked. She smiled 
now, for Reine was a child-lover, and even little 
De Tracys were welcome, as they came toward 
her with their bunches of flowers out of the 
fields, and the pretty strange lady following. 

"Who are you bringing me?" Reine asked, 
"and what do you want, my children? Ma- 
delaine, shall I give you some milk and some 
peaches?" 

" Out of Josette's little me'nar/e," said Made- 
laine, while Henri cried out, " Oh, there is old 
Paris !" and went and clasped the big dog round 
the fleck. 

Nanine, meanwhile advancing very politely 
and prettily, in a smart little toilette, explained 
that Miss George was a demoiselle Anglaise 
who was staying with them, and that they had 
come to request Mademoiselle Chretien to sup- 
ply them with butter for a few days. "Our 
cows arc ill," said Nanine, shrugging her shoul- 
ders, "and we are all but reduced to dry 
bread." 

"There are others besides vou who eat their 



48 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



bread dry," said Reine ; " but your gi-andmam- 
iiia can have as much butter as she likes, Ma- 
demoiselle Nanine, at the market price, since 
she has money to pay for it." She did not say 
this rudely, but rather sadly, and then she sud- 
denly turned to Catharine, and asked her if she 
would not like some milk too. "And so you 
arc English ?" Reine said, in her odd sweet 
voice, pushing open a door with both her hands. 
Reine's hands were not like Madame Binaud's, 
two red paws which could be seen shining a 
mile off, but thin and white like a lady's. 
Catharine glanced at them a little curiously as 
they lay outspread upon the oak, and she saw 
that Reine wore a signet-ring on one finger ; 
then she looked up in her face again, and Reine 
Chre'tien caught the glance and melted some- 
how toward the little thing with the startled 
look and curious soft eyes that seemed to be 
taking every thing in. The love-making of 
friendship is not unlike that of sentiment, and 
friends are friends sometimes in an instant al- 
most, even though they may not have set the 
feeling to the tune of words and protestations. 

I hardly know which of these two women 
needed the other most, when they met by 
chance in the silent, sunny court-yard that 
morning. In after times, doubt, trouble, cruel 
suspicion, pain, and jealousy came to part them, 
but they were faithful to one another through 
it all. There was something to forgive and to 
forget for each of them, but they loved one an- 
other well enough to be able to remember and 
to need no forgiveness. They suited. Some- 
how there was a certain affinity between them 
which is priceless in friendship. It is worth all 
the virtues, and merits, and accomplishments 
put together to people who care for one anoth- 
er, or who ought to care. 

Catharine, who had never in her life spoken 
to a Kormandy peasant before, listened and 
looked with all her eyes. There was Reine, 
dressed like a doll, in flaps, and apron, and or- 
naments ; but Catharine was touched and fasci- 
nated by the gi-ave, noble face, the pathetic 
voice. Alas ! she was not the first Reine had 
charmed. 

The girl gave the children their milk out of 
a great brass pan standing surrounded by little 
barrels for making butter. " Should you like 
to see the farm?" she asked them. "This is 
where we keep our cider ;" and, opening a door 
into an old vaulted cellar, she showed them six 
huge butts, standing side by side, and reach- 
ing to the ceiling. Each one of them was 
large enough to drown the whole party. Na- 
nine exclaimed at their size. "They are half 
of them empty already," said Reine, laughing. 
" Dominique alone could drink one of those for 
his supper. I don't offer you any," she said to 
Catharine, leading them away, and locking the 
door behind her. "I know English people do 
not like cider," and she sighed as she spoke. 

She went before them through many courts, 
opening arched doors, into store-rooms heaped 
with the oily colza grain. She showed them a 



wheat-field inclosed by four walls, against which 
nectarines and apricots were ripening. The 
cows were all out in the meadows, but there 
were a few sheep in a stable ; and at last she 
brought them into the great farm-kitchen. It 
had been added on to the rest of the buildings; 
so had Reine's own room, which was over it, 
and reached by stone steps from outside. 

Petitpere was sitting at the table, eating 
bread and soup. He looked hot and tired, but 
he got up to make a bow and a little speech. 
He was a hospitable and courteous old fellow, 
whatever his other defects may have been. 
" Ladies, you ai-e welcome to the farm," he said. 
"Pray es;cuse my continuing my breakfast. I 
have been out since five o'clock in the fields, 
with the soldiers." 

"We have not men enough to get in the 
harvest," Reine jsxplained to Catharine, "and 
we send for the soldiers to hel]) us." 

"And have you, too, been up since sunrise ?" 
Catharine asked. 

"I see it every morning of my life," said 
Reine. "I should like to show it you from our 
archway. The sea awakens first, all our ani- 
mals stir as if they knew ; it is a most beautiful 
hour," she said gravely, "and like a prayer be- 
fore the work." 

What was there about Reine Chre'tien that at- 
tracted and interested her so curiously? Cath- 
arine asked herself this, and also how was it 
and why was it that the jilace seemed so strange- 
ly familiar ? Had she been there in some pre- 
vious existence ? She turned and looked round 
about. The window, the great cupboard, with 
the gleaming hinges, she had seen them before 
somewhere — she could not understand it. Pe- 
titpere went on composedly drinking his soup ; 
Catharine still stood in a puzzle. She had a 
silly little fancy there would be a bright brass 
pot in one of the corners, but it was not there as 
she expected : she could not understand it at all. 

Reine begged them to come and see her 
again, and stood watching them thoughtfully 
under the archway as they went home across 
the fields where the soldiers were reaping with 
peaceful scythes, and the corn fell against the 
horizon, and the figures of the gleaners with 
their golden trovcn treasures stood out Avith 
garments flying against the sky. Then she 
turned and crossed the court once more, and 
once she stopped and pulled a letter from her 
pocket and read it over twice. 

Catharine thought as she walked back that 
morning that if she could have forgotten all 
that had ])assed before she came to 'J'racy, all 
the people she had known, all the things she 
had thought, she could breathe on for years 
happily enough in this fruitful country. But 
who is there who would forget willingly what 
has gone before? There are few who would 
not remember more if they could, if it were 
even the pangs they liave forgotten. 

As they reached the court-yard, they met 
Monsieur de Tracy heavily booted and gaiter- 
cd, all dressed in white, and finishing his morn- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



49 



ing ronpds. Monsieur Fontaine was with him, 
also in linen clothes. He acted as a sort of 
agent or manager in Tracy's absence, and used 
often to come up to talk over business and bail- 
iffs. They all met just inside the iron gates of 
the court-yard. Fontaine bowed profoundly to 
the pretty, fresh -looking little miss, with the 
great bunch of field-flowers in her hand, and the 
blue ribbons in her crisp black hair. The chil- 
dren clustered round their father, and Henri 
held him prisoner while Nanine stuck pojipies 
into all his button-holes, and little Madekine, 
who could reach no higher, ornamented his 
gaiters with flowers. 

Meanwhile the following conversation was 
going on : 

"You have quite recovered from the fatigue 
of your journey, I trust ?" said Fontaine. " One 
need scarcely ask mademoiselle the question." 

"Oui, monsieur," said Catharine, looking up 
shyly. 

"And mademoiselle has already surrounded 
herself with flowers," said Fontaine, alluding to 
the bouquet. 

"Oui, monsieur," said Catharine, who did 
not know what else to say. 

"And I hope that mademoiselle is pleased 
with our country ?" said Fontaine, speaking 
both in his public and his private capacity. 

" Oui, monsieur," said Catharine, with great 
originality, half laughing at her own stupidity, 
and moving away toward the house, to put an 
end to such a silly conversation. 

It was like a scene in a play, like a picture 
on a fan or a bonbon box. It seemed as if noth- 
ing could be less serious. The little banality, 
the bow, the courtesy, it was a nothing, Cath- 
arine thought, or she would have thought so had 
she thought at all. To the children it was an 
instant of great anxiety : would the flowers tum- 
ble off their papa when he moved his legs? — 
but Catharine tripped away unconscious and 
unconcerned. 

Poor Fontaine's fate, too, was decided in that 
instant, when he bowed so profoundly, and 
Catharine turned away with her quick little 
smile. Not at Bayeux, not at Caen, not in- 
cluding Madame la Sous-Frefette herself, was 
there any one to be compared to this charming 
young Englishwoman, thought the maire. As 
for a dot, he would jirefer Miss George with a 
moderate sum, to Reine with all her fortune ; 
and then something told him that the English 
were so orderly, such excellent housekeepers, 
caring nothing for follies and expenses. " Toi- 
lette is their aversion," thought Fontaine, re- 
membering at the same time some of the bills 
he had paid for Toto's poor mother. He built 
a castle in the air, a Tower of Babel it was, poor 
fellow, reaching to heaven. He perceived him- 
self passing Reine Chretien, with a lovel}' and 
charmingly mannered Madame Fontaine beside 
him, elegantly but not expensively attired ; he 
pictured her to himself embroidering by his fire- 
side, superintending his menage. As he thought 
of Catharine, a sweet, arch, gentle glance came 



dazzling his eyes, like sunlight through the 
double eye-glass, and at that minute Jean 
moved, after patiently standing until his decora- 
tion M'as complete, and, alas for poor little Ma- 
delaine, all the flowers fell off him. 

"Good-morning, Monsieur le Maire," said 
Madame de Tracy, suddenly appearing at the 
hall door. " Won't you stay and breakfast 
with us?" ' 

"Madame," said the maire, "you are too 
good. I shall be quite delighted." 

Catliarine liked the breakfast-hour at Tracy. 
They all came in cheerful and freshly dressed, 
and took their places in the long, picturesque- 
looking salle, with its vaulted .roof and many 
windows. The food was carefully and prettily 
served and ornamented ; the white bright china 
glittered on the table ; the golden and purple 
fruit was heaped up bountifully. She liked to 
look at it all from her jdace by Madame do 
Tracy, as she liked looking at Marthe's pale, 
beautiful head o]3])osite to her, or Madame 
Jean's smart ribbons. Catharine used some- 
times to compare the scene at Tracy — the cool 
green windows, the festive -looking table, the 
ripple of talk — to the sombre dining-room in 
Eaton Square, where the smoke bad settled in 
clouds upon the faded stucco walls, where Mr. 
Butler sliced the eternal legs of mutton while 
every body sat round and watched the process 
in silence and anxiety. 

Monsieur Fontaine sat next Catharine to- 
day ; Madame de Tracy sent them in together. 
She could not help thinking, as she followed 
the couple, what an easy solution there might 
be to all her difficulties. The little thing would 
be the very wife for Fontaine — he would make 
an excellent husband. It would be a home for 
her— the maire's admiration was evident, and 
Ernestine had been too provoking that morning. 

There had been an exjdanation, ending as 
explanations generally end, by hopelessly con- 
fusing matters. Ernestine declared with the 
utmost liveliness that she had not room to lodge 
a fly in her ajiartments at Paris, and that noth- 
ing would induce her to have a governess in the 
house. 

"But it is certain neither I nor your grand- 
mother require one," said poor Madame de 

Tracy, at her wit's end. "And we go to V 

on the twentieth of next month. What am I 
to do? How can I tell her?" 

It seemed like a second inspiration to this 
impulsive lady when on her way to the break- 
fast-room she happened to see the little scene 
in the court -yard. The bow, the respectful 
look of admiration, which said nothing to Miss 
George, were like signals of approaching succor 
to the distressed hostess. Madame de Tracy 
thought no more of parceling out the future of 
two living souls than she did of matching her 
cap-strings. As she sat there at the head of the 
table, she talked, schemed, made, looked after 
them all, carved out destinies and chicken with 
admirable precision and rapidity. "J'liptistc, 
take this wing to Monsieur de Tracy. Marthe, 



50 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



I know it is no use offering you any. Monsieur 
le Maire, do you prefer omelette?" 

This was the first Friday that Catharine had 
spent at Tracy, and she saw with a thrill that 
omelettes were being handed round, and great 
flowery roast potatoes and fried fish. There 
were, however, chickens too, and cutlets, of 
which, as a Protestant, she felt bound to par- 
take. So did Jean and his grandmother. His 
mother was of an amphibious persuasion, some- 
times fish, sometimes flesh, as the fancy took her. 
She was by way of being a Protestant, but she 
went to mass with her family, and fasted on 
Fridays when Marthe and Ernestine were there. 
Madame de Tracy mere, as they called the old 
lady up stairs, had a dispensation. Catharine 
was rather disappointed to see them all quietly 
peppering and suiting the nice little dishes be- 
fore them, and enjoying their breakfasts. She 
thought of her aunt Farebrother's warnings ; the 
scene did not look very alarming. Monsieur 
Fontaine, although strictly adhering to the rules 
laid down by his churcli, managed to make an 
excellent repast, attending at the same time to 
his companions' wants, and passing salt, and 
pepper, and sugar with great empressement and 
gallantry. Catharine herself, before breakfast 
was over, became conscious of his devotion, and, 
I am sorry to say, was woman enough to be 
amused and not displeased by it. Once she 
caught Madame de Tracy's glance ; tliere.were 
no frozen looks now to chill and terrify. " I 
am determined I will speak to him on the sub- 
ject immediately after breakfast," Madame de 
Tracy was thinking. 

" Monsieur le Maire, I want to show you my 
new plantation. Ernestine, little Madelaine is 
longing for a bunch of grajies. Baptistc, has 
Madame de Tracy mere's breakfast been taken 
up?" 

" Madame desires a little more chicken," said 
Baptiste, respectfully. " Mademoiselle Picard 
has just corne down to fetch some; also a little 
Burgundy wine, and an egg, and some figs." 

Catharine used to wonder at the supplies 
which were daily sent up from every meal to 
this invisible invalid. She had seen the shut- 
ters of her rooms from without, but she never 
penetrated into the interior of the apartment 
which Madame de Tracy mere inhabited. Once 
or twice, in passing, she had heard a hoarse voice 
like a man's calling Picard or Baptiste (they 
were the old lady's personal attendants); once 
Catharine had seen a pair of stumpy velvet shoes 
standing outside her door. That was all. Old 
Madame de Tracy was a voice, an appetite, a 
pair of shoes to Catharine, no more. 

Every body is something to somebody else. 
Certain hieroglyphics stand to us in lieu of most 
of our neighbors. Poor little Catharine herself 
was a possible storm and discussion to some of 
tlie people present — to iMarthe, a soul to be 
saved ; to Madame de Tracy, a problem to be 
solved and comfortably disposed of; to Monsieur 
Fontaine, carried away by his feelings, the un- 
conscious Catharine appeared as one of the many 



possible Madame Fontaines in existence, and 
certainly the most graceful and charming of them 
all. There was only that unfortunate question 
of the dot to outweigh so much amiability and 
refinement. 

After breakfast every body disappeared in dif- 
ferent directions. The children and Miss George 
went up into Madame de Tracy's bedroom, 
where she had desired them to sit of a morn- 
ing. It was a comfortable Napoleonic apart- 
ment, witli l)ureaus, and brass inlaid tables, u])on 
which bonbonnieres, and liqueur-stands, and ar- 
rangements for sugar and water were disposed. 
A laurel-crowned clock was on the chimney- 
piece, over which the late M. de Tracy's silhou- 
ette legion of honor and lock of hair were hang- 
ing neatly framed and glazed. The children 
sat with their heads together spelling out their 
tasks. Catharine's bright eyes glanced up and 
round about the room ; and out across the gar- 
dens, and the vine-clad roofs of the ont-houses, 
the flies came buzzing. There was silence and 
a scent of ripe fruit from the garden. Sudden- 
ly, with a swift pang, she remembered tiiat it 
was a week to-day since she had said good-hy 
to Rosy and Totty, and to Dick. The three 
names used to come together somehow in her 
thoughts. A week already since she had bade 
him a hasty farewell at the door of a room with 
every body standing round . . . She could not 
bear to think of it, she thought, as she began to 
recall every expression, every sound, every as- 
pect of that instant, which had been to her like 
Mohammed's, and which had seemed to last fur 
a thousand years. 

The last few days had been so sunny, so easy, 
so harmonious a medley of sweet summer weath- 
er, and gardens and grapes, and lively talk, that 
Catharine had been too much absorbed to dream. 
People do not dream when they are happy. For 
the last few days she had remembered without 
bitterness. Life seemed to nave grown sudden- 
ly bearable, and almost easy once more. If she 
had known how short a time her tranquillity 
was to last, she might have made more of it per- 
ha]3s, and counted each minute as it passed. 
But she did not know, and she wasted many of 
them as she was doing now, as we all do, in 
unavailing hankering and regrets — precious lit- 
tle instants flying by only too quickly, and piping 
to us very sweetly, and we do not dance. Look- 
ing back, one laments not so much the unavoid- 
able sorrows of life as its wasted peace and hap- 
piness, and then more ])recious minutes pass in 
remorse for happiness wasted long ago. 

" I wonder what grandmamma is talking to 
Monsieur Fontaine about?" saidNanine, stand- 
ing on tiptoe and peeping out. " Look, Miss 
George, how they go walking up and down the 
alle'e verte." 

"Monsieur Fontaine seems very much ex- 
cited," said Catharine, smiling, as Fontaine be- 
gan gesticulating suddenly, and stopped short 
in his walk to give more emphasis to what he 
was saying. 

If she could have heard what he was saying ! 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



51 



CHAPTER X. 

A BOUQUET OF MAKGUEKITES. 

About this time one or two people came oc- 
casionally to stay in the house for a night or 
two : tlie De Vernons, who were neighbors, 
young Robert de Coetlogon, Ernestine's broth- 
er, and others from time to time. Catharine 
did not see very much of them ; they came and 
they went without any reference to her. Ma- 
dame de Tracy was very kind to her always. 
Even Madame Jean had melted, and got to like 
the bright-faced little thing, although she never 
altered her vexatious determination to admit no 
governess into her house. Madame de Tracy 
had begged that Catharine might not be told. 
She did not want the poor cliild to be unneces- 
sarily distressed, and she looked so happy and 
comfortably settled, that it seemed a shame to 
disturb her, when, perhaps, every thing, might 
arrange itself smoothly, and without any expla- 
nations. Madame de Tracy used to take Cath- 
arine out sometimes. One day they drove to 
Baj-eux, with its cathedral towers, and winding 
streets, and jewelers' shops all twinkling. An- 
other day they went to Petitport : the fishwives 
looked up grinning and nodding as the lady of 
tlie manor passed by. J' Do you see the pretty 
little chalet on the cliff overlooking the sea?" 
said Madame de Tracy, pointing to the little 
house with the pink curtains, and all its wooden 
balconies and weatlicr-cocks. " That is where 
Fontaine lives. Is it not a charming little 
place ? I have to speak to him. We will leave 
the ponies down here at Pe'lottier's." And Ma- 
dame de Tracy put the reins into some idler's 
hands, and panted up the cliff, too busy, and 
l)reoccnpied, and breathless to glance at the sap- 
2)hire sea at her feet. 

Fontaine was not at home, but an old gentle- 
man's head was to be seen through one of the 
windows, and a fat old lady with mustaches was 
sitting in the garden with her hands on her two 
knees, and her feet on a footstool, and Toto was 
galloping round and round the little gravel 
path. 

"My son is out, unfortunately, Madame la 
Comtesse," said the old lady, bowing from her 
seat to Madame de Tracy, who remained outside 
the gate. " He will be in despair when I tell 
him you passed this way," she added, stiffly. 

" I hope you are well, Madame Merard," said 
Madame de Tracy, willing to ])ropitiate. " Your 
son gives me news of you from time to time. 
Wiiat a charming little habitation this is !" 

" They offered us five hundred francs a month 
for it only yesterday," said Madame Me'rard, 
with dignity. "I do all I can to prevail upon 
Cliarles to let it. Rents are enormous just now. 
One should make one's profit when one can. 
But Charles will not hear reason." 

Meanwhile Toto and Catharine were making 
acquaintance. The little boy had come up to 
look at the pretty lady his papa had told him 
about; and Catharine, bending over the low 
railing and holding out her hand, said, "What 



nice flowers you have got in your garden ! Will 
you give me one of them ?" 

"Papa and I water them every evening," said 
Toto, picking a slug-eaten specimen and hold- 
ing it up. "I have a little watering-pot of my 
own." 

The sea looked so blue, the shutters so green, 
the sunlight so yellow, the marguerites so bril- 
liant, that Catharine's eyes were dazzled, and 
she scarcely noticed the curious, dissatisfied 
glances old Madame Me'rard was casting in her 
direction. Madame de Tracy, however, saw 
them, and quickly hurried Catharine away, for 
fear she should be frightened by this somewhat 
alarming person. 

"Pray tell Monsieur le Maire we asked for 
him," said Madame.de Tracy, as they walked 
away, bowing, and forcing herself to be civil to 
the old lady of the chalet. 

For Fontaine himself Madame de Tracy be- 
gan to feel almost a sentimental interest. She 
looked upon him from an entirely new point of 
view ; a bore no longer, but a hero of romance, 
an enthusiastic and disinterested lover. Ma- 
dame de Tracy felt that if she were Catharine, 
nothing in the world would be more delightful 
to her than a marriage with Monsieur Fontaine. 
"Handsome, amiable,warm-heartea, a goodman 
of business, musical, universally respected; it is 
a piece of good fortune I never dared hope for," 
said the chatelaine to herself. "I should like 
the ijiarriage to take place, if possible, before 
the 15th (if next month. It was too absurd of 
Sarah Butler to alarm me so unnecessarily about 
Dick. One might be very comfortable in that 
nice house of Fontaine's," said Madame de Tra- 
cy, aloud. "Don't you think so, Catharine ?" 

"Oh yes," said Catharine, not knowing what 
she was saying. 

Another time Madame de Tracy suddenly 
asked her how she should like to pass her life 
among them always. Catharine thought that 
she was speaking of her as a governess, and 
said, with grateful effusion, "You are so good 
to me ; I am more happy with you than I could 
be with any body else. I almost forget I am a 
governess." 

"My dear child, I meant how should j'ou 
like to settle down among us and marry ?" said 
Madame do Tracy, apparently unconcerned. 

"I shall never marry," said Catharine, turn- 
ing away disapj^ointed", with a wistful, perplexed 
look in her eyes. 

Madame de Tracy did not press the subject, 
hut she went on asking Fontaine to breakfast 
and dinner, until Ernestine declared it was qnite 
intolerable, and even Marthe gently remonstra- 
ted. 

Catharine looked happy and contented, but 
presently, wliile all was going on as usual, there 
came a secret change. Outside every thing was 
the same, inside it was all different. These two 
existences side by side, " I'ame et la bete," as 
De Maistre calls them, seem sometimes to lead 
two lives almost apart, leading in different di- 
rections with different results. Do they in their 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



differences supplement one another, one is some- 
times tempted to ask, and keep the balance 
even ? In one calm and uneventful existence, 
angels may know of terrible tragedies, of happi- 
ness, and overwhelming misfortu.-e, scarcely ac- 
knowledged even by the "bete" itself; whereas 
another life, outwardly hopeless, deserted, un- 
successful in every thing, may from within have 
won all the prizes that seemed to have failed it. 

When Catharine had been a little time at 
Tracy, when she began to know her way about 
the house, and the vine-grown garden, and along 
the hedgeless paths to the sea, to the farm, to 
the church ; narrow paths skirting the fields, 
dust-blown, fringed with straggling flowers and 
scattered with stones — when she liad tasted her 
fill of tlie grapes that were sweetening uiron the 
walls, when she had gathered handfuls of the 
flowers that were growing all about the gardens 
and courts in a sweet yet disordered luxuriance 
— when all this had grown fomiliar, she began 
to turn away from it all, and look back once 
more toward the past which was already begin- 
ning to glow with a distant radiance. It was 
like some one dazzled for a little by a sudden 
illumination who begins to see clearly again — 
more clearly, alas ! than before. 

She liad met Reine once or twice in her walks, 
and had promised to go and see her. 

" I shall look out for you every day until you 
come," said Keine, in her odd, jarring voice, 
that sometimes began harshly, and ended in a 
pathetic cadence. "It is not often that any 
one comes to see me that I care for." 

Reine had, like others infinitely wiser and 
better than herself, to pay a certain penalty of 
loneliness and misapprehension which seems to 
be the doom of all those who live upon the 
mountain tops. Catharine, too, was lonely in 
her way, and the country girl's cordial sym- 
pathy was very grateful and sweet to her. But 
Catharine was lonely from outward influences, 
and not from inner causes. Poor little soul, it 
was not for the mountain tops that she longed. 
Any green valley, any fertile, tranquil plain, 
would have contented her, if she could only 
have seen the shadow of one person falling 
across it and advancing toward her. 

One Sunday evening — it was the day after 
she had called at the chalet — Catharine came 
down dressed for dinner before any body else. 
She came into the drawing-room. It was 
empty, and one lamp only was standing upon 
a table, and casting its circlet of light upon the 
cloth. It lit up a card-rack, and Madame de 
Tracy's paroissien with its golden cross, and 
some letters which had just arrived by the post, 
and which had been left there by the servant. 
Catharine had a book in her hand (it was Eu'- 
rjv'iiie Grandet, which M. de Tracy had lent her), 
and slie walked quietly across the dark room to 
the light, and knelt down by the table to read, 
as she had a trick of doing when she was alone. 
But she did not open her novel : in an instant 
she saw one letter lying there with the others, 
and she started with a sort of shock, and let the 



book fall on the table, and the poor little heart 
gave a great leap, and began throbbing and 
crying aloud in its own language. If Catharine 
had seen Dick himself she might have been less 
moved. A calm belongs to certainty which 
does not come when there is only a hint, a pos- 
sible chance, an impossible disappointment in 
store. " Was he coming ? Oh, was he coming, 
perhaps ?" 

Catharine could not herself have told you how 
it was that she recognized liis handwriting in an 
instant among all the others. She had only 
once seen his initials on the fly-leaf of a book — 
but she knew it — she did not need the English 
post-mark to tell her whence the letter came : 
here was his writing, and she might not read 
it; here was a secret he himself had closed and 
sealed against her. His thoughts, his words, 
were there, but they were not for her. It 
seemed to her suddenly as if the thing in the 
whole world tliat she most longed for was that 
letter — even more than to see him again. Did 
it come straight from the river-side? She re- 
membered a table in the studio, where books, 
and loose papers, and envelopes were lying : 
was that where it was written? She longed to 
take it up and to read the post-mark, and to look 
at the stamp upon the_ seal. With a sudden 
movement like a child's, she put her hands be- 
hind her to keep them out of tem]>tation, and 
then, poor little foolish, foolish thing, she bent 
suddenly forward and touched it with her lijis. 

A minute afterward she would have given, 
oh, how much ! not to have done this. She sat 
there in scorn with her own weakness, angry 
with herself, indignant ; the red and white 
flames were still coming and going in her 
cheeks when Madame de Tracy came bustling 
into the room, followed by the inevitable M. 
Fontaine, who had just arrived. 

"This is the only punctual person in the 
house, Monsieur le Maire," said Madame de 
Tracy, smiling and nodding at Catharine as she 
spoke, and then she went straight up to the let- 
ters, and then she looked up curiously at Catha- 
rine a second time, and caught tlie girl's odd, 
wistful glance, and saw her suddeidy change 
color. As for Fontaine, he thought he had 
never seen Miss George in gi'eater beauty. "If 
she were dressed by one of our first modistes in 
Caen," thought Monsieur Fontaine, "not Ma- 
dame la Sous-Pre'fette herself would present a 
more distinguished appearance." He took a 
chair and sat down opposite to her in the lamp- 
light, and began thanking her for her kindness 
to his little boy the day before. 

"Toto has been talking of you ever since, 
mademoiselle," said Monsieur le Maire. " His 
grandmother and I liad some difficulty in pre- 
venting him from quitting his bed to accompany 
me here to-night. Toto has a great deal of 
character, poor little fellow,'' sighed Fontaine, 
with real kindness and tenderness. "He has 
no mother, and one is always afraid of not being 
gentle enough with him. I am afraid we are 
not quite so decided as we ought to be." 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



53 



It was impossible not to like Fontaine when 
he talked about his little sou. This man was 
genuinely and unaffectedly kind-hearted and 
affectionate. He was absurd, prosy, fussy ; he 
had all sorts of tiresome peculiarities, but he 
was incapable of a harsh or unkind action. 

Madame de Tracy opened her letters, and 
read them one by one. Catharine answered 
Fontaine from beyond the sea, as it were ; from 
the river-side, from the quaint old studio ; lis- 
tening to some one else the whole time, to a 
distant music, playing across all the days tliat 
had passed since she heard it. 

Every body began to enter the room. " Noth- 
ing for me?" said Ernestine, coming in, in a 
marvelous shimmering toilette. " It is too pro- 
voking ! people never write — Jean sends me a 
telegram when he goes away . . . Isn't this 
from Dick?" she continued, looking over her 
mother-in-law's shoulder. "What does he 
say ?" 

"We will talk it over another time," said 
Madame de Tracy, in a constrained sort of way 
— and she handed the letter to Ernestine. 

"He asks for fricandeau !" said Ernestine, 
looking puzzled. 

"Poor little prodigal!" said Jean, laughing 
kindly, and in his turn beginning to read. 

Queen's Walk, Sept. 1. 

My dear Aunt, — I have been working very 
hard, or I should have written to you before. 
There is a bit of the cliff at Petitport which 
must come into my picture, and I am thinking 
of running over before the wedding. Will you 
take me and my canvas for a day or two, and 
once more prepare the fi-icandeau for your af- 
fectionate R- B. 

P.S. — Uncle Charles has been buying some 
wonderful sherry, he says. Hervey is gone on 
a walking tour with Francis. The affair is set- 
tled for the 9th. 

This was the letter Jean de Tracy read in si- 
lence. Madame de Tracy for once looked stern, 
and glanced meaningly at her son as he return- 
ed it. She folded it up without a word. 

Catharine's troubled manner, Dick's proposal 
to return so soon again, had filled her with 
vague alarm once more. Dick might be uncon- 
scious, serious, amusing himself with a passing 
flirtation — it was impossible to say what he was 
about. He had certainly declared once that 
Miss George was nothing to him, but it was 
well to be on the safe side. "We must make 
some excuse to keep him awaj' a little longer," 
thought Madame de Tracy. She wanted to be 
a good genius to all these people. She liked 
managing, arranging: she meant rather well: 
it was convenient to dispose of Miss George, 
and amusing to occupy herself with these senti- 
mental matters. How bitterly she regretted 
afterward tlie irreparable work she had accom- 
plished ! The good lady disquieted herself a 
good deal at one time as to whether she had not, 
])erhaps, materially interfered with the plans of 
Providence. 



They seemed to drop the subject by tacit 
consent. Ernestine asked no more questions. 
Catharine's heart gave one more flutter, and 
sank down and down. Ah ! why would they 
not at least talk, and say what they meant. This 
was all she was to know. This was all the 
uncertainty : all her life she might expect no 
more — nothing else. This horrible instinct of 
what they were thinking was her only certainty. 
To Catharine, the sight of the letter had brought 
every thing back with a rush. Poor little thing, 
she had thought her house was swept and gar- 
nished, and here were seven devils worse than 
the first who had taken possession. It was an 
absurdity, a childishness, but she longed for that 
letter. Tlie sudden conviction that for all her 
life she should have no right even to read M-hat 
he had written, even to ask a question or to 
speak his name, was a sort of passing torture. 
It lasted until dinner was announced, some ten 
minutes after. It seemed like an hour of agony 
to Catharine, there in the lamplight, sitting in 
her muslins as if nothing had happened. It was 
nonsense ; and yet she suffered as keenly as 
from any of the certainty that came to her later. 
From his hand it was easy to bear any blow; 
but to be parted by others . . . 

"Permit me, mademoiselle, to have the hon- 
or," said Monsieur le Maire, offering his arm. 

Catharine suddenly felt as if she hated poor 
Fontaine, ambling and complimenting beside 
her, as if it was a cruel mockery of fate to come 
with this absurd compromise to jeer at her and 
turn her into ridicule. She had never before 
felt so sure of poor Fontaine's admiration, and 
never thought of it so seriously. All dinner- 
time she was silent ; she turned from him — she 
was almost rude. He had never before seen 
her so little amiable, so inattentive. 

Monsieur Fontaine departed early in the even- 
ing, very crestfallen and out of spirits. For the 
first time. in his life he told himself his heart 
was really touched. He was humble, as most 
vain people are, and he alternated from absurd 
complacency to utter despondency. Never un- 
til now had he felt like this about any one. His 
first wife was a small heiress, and the match had 
been purely one of convenience. For Reiiie, a 
terrified fascination induced him reluctantly to 
come forward at his mother's suggestion ; but 
Catharine's gentleness charmed and touched 
him at once. Here was a person he could 
understand and sympathize with. He longed 
to protect her, to make some great sacrifice for 
her, to bring her home proudly to his chalet 
and garden, and to say, "All this is yours; 
only love me a little and be good to Toto." 
" My excellent mother will regret her want of 
fortune," thought Fontaine. "AlasI who knows 
whether she will ever have the occasion to do 
so. And yet," said the maire to himself, with 
a certain simple dignity, " that child might do 
worse than accept the hand of an honest man." 
He did not go into his chalet through the kitch- 
en as usual, but walked down the garden to his 
" cabane," a small wooden sentry-box facing 



54 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



the sea. It had been erected at the bottom of 
the sloping embankment for the convenience of 
bathing. A little heap of white stones that 
Toto had placed upon the seat were gleaming 
in the darkness. Fontaine pushed them care- 
fully into one corner, and then sat down and 
smoked one cigar after another until quite late 
in tlie niglit. 

Meanwhile the drawing-room of the chateau 
was still lighted up. Some one had been sing- 
ing, the otliers had been dancing, but Catharine 
would not join them. Poor child, was the mu- 
sic of her life only to be for other people to dance 
to ? Were her dreams of love to be so cruelly 
realized? Fontaine, with all his devotion, at- 
tention, conversation, was not as much alive to 
Catharine as that one little bit of paper in Ma- 
dame de Tracy's pocket. 

Catharine was standing ready in the hall next 
morning when the children came running up to 
her. She had awakened late, refreshed by a 
long dreamless sleep, and she thought she had 
shaken off the vivid impressions of the night be- 
fore. But how relentlessly people are pursued 
in life by any idea which has once taken posses- 
sion of tliem! Every thing seems to suggest 
and bring it back : the very stones cry out ; we 
open a book, and we read something concern- 
ing it ; chance people speak of it to us ; even 
the children in their play told Catharine that 
she was alone, and had neither home nor friend 
to shield her. The children went into the 
kitchen-garden, and Miss George followed them 
there. 

Catharine sat down on the side of the old 
well ; the vines were creeping up the iron bars, 
the grapes were hanging between the leaves. 
There was one great ripe bunch dropi)ing 
against the sky, painted purple upon the blue. 
A few wasps were floating drowsily ; a bird flew 
swiftly by, glancing down for one instant with 
its bright sleepy eye. There was again that 
scent of fruit and indescribable sweetness in the 
air. As she sat there, Catharine began to feel 
as if she had known it all from the beginning. 
It was like that strange remembrance in the 
farm-kitchen, only less vivid. It was all very 
sweet and lovely; but she thougiit, with a sud- 
den thrill, that the ugliest London street along 
which Dick Butler had walked would be more 
to her than this. 

Was she never to see him again ? ah ! was 
she never to see him again? And as she 
thought this, his face seemed to go before her 
eyes. They had been singing a little song the 
night before at the chateau, 

" Si vous n'avez rien a me dire, pourquoi venir aupriis de 
moi ?" 

it went. Dreams said nothing to her now. S'he 
looked at them in a sort of despair as they went 

"Why does he come, why does he come?" 
sighed the little thing, clinging to the iron 
crank. "Why am I haunted like this?" She 
felt as if it was cruel— yes, cruel of Fate to 
mock her and tempt her thus ; to have brought 



the fruit, sweet, and ripe, and tempting to her 
lips, and to whisper at the same time cruel 
warnings: "Tiiis is for others, not for you. 
This is for the other Catharine, who does not 
very much care — this will be for him some day 
when he chooses. Do you wish? You may 
wish, and wish, and wish, you will be no near- 
er ; put out your hand, and you will see all these 
beautiful purple, sweet peaches turn into poison- 
ous berries, bitter and sickening. And yet I 
did not go after it," thought the girl, with a 
passionate movement. " Why does this come 
to me, crossing my path to distract, to vex, to 
bewilder?" Catharine was but a child still: 
she leaned over the old moss-grown parapet of 
the well and let her tears drop deep, deep into 
it. What a still passage it was down into the 
cool heart of the earth. She heard a fresh 
bubble of water rippling at the bottom, and she 
watched her tears as they fell sparkling into the 
dark silent depths. "Nobody will find them 
there," she said to herself, smiling sadly at the 
poor little conceit. " I will never cry again if 
I can help it, but if lean not help it I will come 
here to cry." 

And yet this poor little hopeless, sorrowful 
love of Catharine's was teaching and educating 
her, although she did not know it. She was 
only ashamed of it. The thought that they 
suspected it, that it was no chance which had 
caused them all to avoid Dick's name so care- 
fully, made her shrink with shame. The poor 
little wistful, silly thing, with the quick little 
fancies and warm tender heart, was changing 
day by day, making discoveries, suddenly un- 
derstanding things she read, words people spoke. 
The whole pulse of life seemed to be beating 
more quickly. Something had come into her 
face which was not there a year ago. She was 
thinner, and tlie moulding of her two arched 
brows showed as it had not done before. Her 
little round mouth was longer and more finely 
drawn ; her eyes looked you more stiaightly in 
the face through their soft gloom. She got up, 
hearing voices and footsteps approaching : it 
A^as the children, who came running along the 
pathway. 

Henri was holding a great big nosegay, done 
up in stamped paper. It was chiefly made of 
marguerites, sorted into wheels, red, white, 
orange, violet. It was a prim-looking offering, 
with leaves and little buds at regular intervals, 
as Nature never intended them to grow. 

"This is for you !" cried little Henri, tri- 
umphantly. "This beautiful big bouquet. 
Toto and M. Fontaine have brought it. You 
will let me smell it, won't you ?" 

"The flowers are magnificent," said Nanine, 
following panting and indignant. "M. Fon- 
taine confided them to me ; but Henri seized it 
and ran away. I do not like rude little boys." 

" You must tell Monsieur Fontaine I am very 
much obliged to him," said Catharine. "And 
you can put it in water if you like, Nanine." 

"You must thank him yourself," said the lit- 
tle girl, walking beside her. " I know you like 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



55 



marguerites. You wore some in your hair last 
night. They look pretty with your white mus- 
lin dresses." 

Catharine followed the children sadly, walk- 
ing under the song of birds and the glimmering 
.t:rean branches. She would have escaped, but 
Madame de Tracy, with Monsieur Fontaine and 
Toto, came to meet them ; tiie chatelaine was 
calling out cheerfully and waving her parasol. 

Fontaine sprang forward. He looked spruce 
as usual in his white linen dress ; his Panama 
was in his hand; he wore a double eye-glass 
like Jean de Tracy. "We are proud, made- 
moiselle, that you honor us by accepting the 
])roduce of our little garden," said Fontaine. 
"Toto and I cultivate our flowers with some 
care, and we feel more than repaid . . ." 

"Thank you," interrupted Catharine, me- 
chanically. She spoke, looking away over the 
wall at some poplar-trees that were swaying in 
the wind. It brought with it a sound of the sea 
that seemed to fill the air. 

" Accustomed as you must be to the magnifi- 
cent products of your Chatswors and Kieus," 
said Fontaine, "our poor marguerites must 
seem very insignificant. Such as they are, we 
have gathered our best to offer you." 

He said it almost pathetically, and Catharine 
was touched. But how oddly jieople affect and 
change one another. This shy, frightened little 
girl became cold, dignified, absent in Monsieur 
Fontaine's presence, as she stood enduring rath- 
er than accepting his attentions. 

"Thank you. They are very pretty," she 
repeated; "but I am sorry you should have 
gathered your best for me." 



CHAPTER XL 



A pilgrimag: 



A CERTAIN expedition had long been arranged 
for the next day. The ladies wanted to shop, 
Tracy had business in Caen. They were all to 
go over and dine at the hotel, and come home 
in the evening. Catharine begged Madame de 
Tracy to leave her behind. She was shy and 
out of spirits, and was glad when the elder lady 
acceded. Nanine and Henri were carried off; 
only Madelaine, Catharine, and the invisible 
Madame mere were left at home. In the si- 
lence of the house Catharine heard the deep 
voice resounding more than once. 

Miss George went out soon after breakfast, 
leaving Madelaine with her nurse as usual. She 
remembered her promise to Rcine, and there was 
something cordial and cheering in the French- 
woman's kindness. The thought of the farm 
was always connected with brightness in Catha- 
rine's mind, and immediately after breakfast she 
pet off along the fields to see her friend. Some- 
thing was evidently contemplated at the farm. 
A cart was waiting in the court-yard as Catha- 
rine walked in ; Dominique was standing at the 
old mare's head and affectionately rubbing her 



nose. Little Josette and Toto, hand in hand, 
were wandering uj) and down. Toto was mag- 
nificent in Sunday clothes. " Voyez comme 
Toto est beau," said Josette, pointing with her 
little finger and forgetting to be shy in her ex- 
citement. Keiue was preparing a basketful of 
provisions in the kitchen — cream in a brass can, 
roast apjiles, galette, salad and cold meat, all 
nicely packed in white napkins, also a terrinee 
or rice pudding for the children, and a ))iled-up 
dish full of ripe figs and green leaves and grapes 
for dessert. Toto's Sunday clothes looked like 
a holiday expedition. His grandmother jdeased 
herself by inventing little costumes for him. 
On this occasion he wore what she called a tur- 
ban erossais. This Scotch turban was ornament- 
ed by long streamers, glass buttons, and straw 
tassels. He also wore a very short jacket and 
trowsers of the same magnificent plaid. His 
hair was cropjjcd quite close, so as to make his 
head look smooth and round like a ball. Toto 
himself was much pleased with his appearance, 
and gazed at his reflection approvingly in a tub 
of dirty water which was standing in a corner 
of the court. 

"They will take me for a soldier, Josette," 
said he, strutting about. 

"Come in, come in," cried Eeine from her 
kitchen to Catharine, who was standing uncer- 
tain where to go. 

A very odd and unexpected little revelation 
was awaiting Miss George (at least, so she 
thought it) as she came, with eyes dazzled by 
the sunny court, under the old stone porch into 
the dark kitchen, where Eeine was standing, 
and where Pctitpere had been eating his break- 
fast the time before. The odd-shaped shuttles 
for making string were hanging from the ceil- 
ing and swaying a little in the draught from the 
open door. There was the brass pan in the 
corner, which she had looked for ; suddenly she 
recognized it all, the great carved cupboard with 
the hinges, the vine window looking across the 
blazing fields! Now she remembered in an in- 
stant where, and when, and how it was she had 
first seen Heine in her farm-kitchen — how could 
she have ever forgotten ? Here was the picture 
Dick had shown hej- on his easel, only it was 
alive. The shuttles swayed, the light flickered 
on the brazen pan, one of the cnjiboard doors 
was swinging on its hinges, and Reine herself, 
with no hard black lines in her face, only smiles 
and soft changing shadows, came forward, tall, 
and bright, and kind, to meet her. So Dick had 
been here before her, and painted his jjicture 
here where she was standing. When this little 
revelation came to her, Cntliariue, who had been 
attracted before, felt as if she loved Eeine now 
for something more than her own sake. This 
was the explanation — it was all natural enough 
as she came to tliink of it, but it struck her like 
a miracle almost, worked for her benefit. She 
.seized Eeine by the arm; all the color came 
rushing into her cheek. " Now I know where 
I have seen you," she cried. "Ah ! Reine, how 
strangely things happen !" 



66 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



"What do you mean?" said Reine, with a 
quick matter-of-fact glance as she shut down the 
cover of the basket. 

Catharine went on, looking all about the 
place. "Wlien did Mr. Butler paint you? — 
used you to sit to him ? — was it not a beautiful 
picture ? He showed it to us in his studio." 

"It was like the kitchen," said Reine, not ^ 
seeming much surprised, with another odd, re- j 
served glance at Catharine. " I didn't think it 
very like me. I wanted him to paint the court- 
yard and the archway, with Dominique and Pe- 1 
titpere on the bench. A kitchen is always a 
kitchen. Mademoiselle, how I wish you were ^ 
coming with us to-day," she said, in another 
tone. " We are going to the chapel of the 
Deliverande." 

Catharine did not answer; she had not done ; 
witli her questions. Here at last was some one 
to whom she could talk witliout exciting sus- 
picion. Any one may speak of a picture in an j 
unconcerned tone of voice, of Miss Philomel's 
talent for music, of Strephon's odd-shaped crook, I 
or Chloris's pretty little lambs, but they should 
choose their confidantes carefully. Let them i 
beware of women of a certain age and senti- j 
mental turn ; let them, above all, avoid persons 
also interested in music, and flocks, and shep- j 
herds' crooks, or woe betide any one's secret. I 
think if Catharine had been quite silent, and 
never mentioned Dick's name, Reine would by 
degrees liave guessed as much as she did the in- 
stant the little girl spoke Miss George herself 
was not deficient in quickness, but she was pre- 
occupied just now. 

"How little I ever thought I should really 
know you," said Catharine. 

"That is how^ things happen," said Reine. 
"It has been a great pleasure and happiness 
to me. Mademoiselle, you have not said No. 
Will you not honor us by coming to-day ? It 
might amuse you to see the chapel. They say 
that to-day any thing is accorded that one asks 
for there. Tliey say so to make people come 
perhaps," adiled the skeptic. 

"Oh, Reine, what shall you ask for?" said 
Catharine, who believed every tiling. 

"An explanation," said Reine, dryly. " I 
have been expecting one some time. Et vons, 
mademoiselle ?" 

Catharine's color rose again and fell. " One 
would never have the courage to ask for what 
one wislied," she faltered. "Yes, I should like 
to come with you. I suppose Madame de Tracy 
will not mind." 

"We can send a message by Dominique," 
said Reine ; and so the matter was settled. 

Retitpere appeared, brushing his tall beaver 
hat, and then clambered with strong trembling 
hands into his place. The two women sat oppo- 
site to one another, on straw chairs. Josette and 
Toto had a little plank to themselves. Tiie 
children were delighted, and chipped tlieir hands 
at a wind-mill, an old cow, a flight of crows ; so 
did Catharine, at their request. Something like 
a reaction had come after her weariness, and 



then she had had a drop of water, poor little 
fool, when she did not exjject it. Reine smiled 
to see her so gay, and then sighed as slie thought 
of former exjieditions to the Deliverande. 

The old farm stood basking in tiie sun. The 
cart rolled on, past stubble-fields and wide hori- 
zons of corn, and clouds, and meadow-land ; the 
St. Claire was over, and the colza had been reap- 
ed. They passed through villages with lovely 
old church towers and Norman arched windows. 
They passed acacia-trees, with their bright scar- 
let berries, hanging low garden walls. They 
passed more farms, with great archways and 
brilliant vines wreathing upon the stone. The 
distance was a great panorama of sky, and corn, 
and distant sea. The country folks along the 
road cried out to them as they passed, "Vous 
voila en route, pere Chretien," " Amusez-vous 
bien," and so on. Other carts came up to them 
as they approached the chapel, and people went 
walking in the same direction. They passed 
little roadside inns and buvettes for the conven- 
ience of the neighbors, and here and there little 
altars. Once, on the summit of a hill, they 
came to a great cross, with a life-size figure nail- 
ed upon it. Two women were sitting on the 
stone step at its foot, and the cloud-drifts were 
tossing beyond it. It was very awful, Catha- 
rine thouglit. 

An hour later she was sitting in the chapel 
of the Deliverande. In a dark, incense-scented 
place, full of flames, and priests, and music, and 
crowding country peojde, a gorgeously dressed 
altar was twinkling and glittering in her eyes, 
where the Virgin of the Deliverande, in stiff 
embroideries, was standing, with a blaze of ta- 
pers burning among the fresh flowers. Voices 
of boys and girls were loudly chanting the hymn 
to the Virgin in the darkness behind it. Cath- 
arine had groped her way in the dazzling ob- 
scurity to some seats, and when she could see 
she found the children side by side in front of 
her, and she saw Reine on her knees, and Petit- 
pere's meek gray head bowed. One other tiling 
she saw, which seemed to her sad and almost 
cruel — poor old Nanon Lefebvre creejiingtip the 
centre aisle, and setting her basket on the groumi, 
and then kneeling, and with difficulty kissing the 
cross let into the marble pavement in front of 
the altar, and saying a prayer, and slinking 
quickly away. Poor old Nanon ! the penances 
of poverty and old age were also allotted to her. 
Just over Catliarine's head, on a side altar, stood 
a placid saint, with outstretched arms, at wiiosc 
feet numberless little offerings had been placed 
— orange -flowers and wreaths of immortelles, 
and a long string of silver hearts. Catharine, 
who had almost thought it wrong to come into 
a Popish chapel, found herself presently wonder- 
ing whether by offering up a silver lieart she 
could ever ease the dull aching in her own. It 
would have been no hard matter at this time be- 
fore her marriage to bring this impressionable 
little sheep into the fold of the ancient Church. 
But jNIonsieur le Cure of Petitport, who was of 
an energetic and decided turn of mind, was 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



57 



I 



away, and the gentle old Abbe Verdier, who had 
taken his jDlace for a time, did not dream of con- 
versions. Catharine changed very mnch after 
her marriage, and the opportunity was lost. 

Petitpere having concluded his devotions, pres- 
ently announced in a loud whisper that he should 
go and see about the dejeuner; he took the chil- 
dren with him. Reine and Catharine staid a 
little longer. Catharine was fascinated by the 
odd signs, the barbarous fantastic images, which 
expressed the faith, and patience, and devotion 
of these simple people. 

" Venez," said Reine at last, laying a kind 
heavy hand on Catharine's shoulder, and the two 
went out again through the porch into the white 
daylight. 

The inn was crowded with pilgrims, who, 
whether or not their petitions were granted, 
were breakfasting with plenty of wine and very 
good appetites in the quaint old stone kitchen. 
The cook was busy at his frizzling saucepans at 
a fireplace in the centre. The country folks 
were sitting all about unpacking their baskets, 
opening cider-bottles. There was a great cop- 
per fountain let into the massive wall, from 
. which the people filled their jugs with water; a 
winding staircase in the thickness of the wall led 
to the upper story. 

" Par ici," said Petitpere, triumphantly lead- 
ing the way : he had engaged a private room in 
Catharine's honor, for he had some tact, and 
had been used to his daughter-in-law's refine- 
ments, and he said he thought mademoiselle 
would not care to dine below with all those noisy 
people. The private room had a couple of beds 
in it and various pictures — of the Emperor at 
Austerlitz, and three shepherdesses in red bod- 
ices and colored i-eligious prints alternately ; it 
had also a window opening upon the little />/««, 
and exactly opposite the chapel where services 
were constantly going on. 

Reine laid the cloth, piling up the fruit in 
the centre, and pushing the table into the win- 
dow. Petitpere made the snlad very quickly 
and dexterously, and uncorked the wine and the 
cider. Reine had no fear of his transgressing 
before Catharine. "If my aunts were to see 
me now," thought Catharine, and she smiled 
to herself as she thought of Mrs. Buckington's 
face of apoplectic horror at the sight of Pctit- 
pere's blouse at the head of the table ; of Lady 
Farebrother trembling in horror of popery upon 
Mount Ephraim. It was amusing to watch all 
the tide of white caps and blouses down below ; 
it was odd and exciting to be dining in this 
quaint old tower, with all the people shouting 
and laughing underneath. 

It was not so great a novelty to Reine as to 
Catharine; she was a little silent, and once she 
sighed, but she was full of kind care for them 
all, and bright and responding. "Petitpere," 
she said, "give mademoiselle some wine, and' 
Toto and Josette too." I 

"Let us drink to the health of the absent," I 
said Petitpere, solemnly. I 



But Catharine gave a sudden exclamation, 
and put down her glass untouched. "Look! 
ah ! look," she cried, pointing through the win- 
dow. "Who is that?" she cried out. She half 
feared it was a vision that would vanish in- 
stantly as it seemed to have come. Who was 
that standing there in a straw hat, looking as 
she had seen him look a hundred times before ? 
It was no dream, no " longing passion unful- 
filled" taking form and substance for a time. 
It was Richard Butler, and no other, who was 
standing there in the middle of the jilace, look- 
ing up curiously at their window. Petitpert 
knew him directly. 

"C'est Monsieur Richard," he said, hospita^ 
bly, and as if it was a matter of course. "Reine, 
my child, look there. He must come up. 
C'est monsieur Anglais qui fait de la peinture," 
he explained hastily to Catharine. "But you 
recognize him. The English are acquainted 
among each other." 

Recognize him ! Dick was so constantly in 
Catharine's thoughts that, if he had suddenly 
appeared in the place of the Virgin on the high 
altar of tlie chapel, I think she would scarcely 
have been very much surprised after the first 
instant. That he should be there seemed a 
matter of course; that he should be absent was 
the only thing that she found it so impossible 
to believe. As for Reine, she sat quite stili 
with her head turned away ; she did not move 
until the door ojiened and Dick came in, stoop- 
ing under the low archway. He was just as 
usual; they might have been in Mrs. But- 
ler's drawing-room in Eaton Square Catharine 
thought as he shook hands first with one and 
then with another. 

" Did you not know I was coming to Tracy?" 
he said to Catharine. "I found nobody there 
and no preparations just now, but they told me 
you were here, and I got Pe'lottier to give me a 
lift, for I thought you would bring me back," he 
added, turning to Reine. She looked up at 
last, and seemed trying to speak indifferently. 

"You know we are going back in a cart," 
Reine answered harshly. 

" Do you think I am likely to have been daz- 
zled by the splendor of Pelottier's gig?" Dick 
asked. 

Reine did not like being laughed at, " You 
used to object to many things," she said, vexed, 
and then melting. "Such as they are, you 
know you are welcome to any of ours." 

"Am I?" Dick answered, looking kindly at 
her. 

Catharine envied Reine at that instant. She 
had nothing, not even a flower of her own to 
oiFer Dick, except, indeed, she thought, with a 
little smile, that great bouquet out of poor Mon- 
sieur Fontaine's garden. 

If it Mas a sort of ]\[iserere before, what a tri- 
umphal service was not the little evening pray- 
er to Catharine ! They went into the chapel 
after dinner for a minute or two. Sitting there 
in the darkness, she thought, silly child, that 
heaven itself would not seem more beautiful 



58 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



with all the radiance of the crystal seas and 
rolling suns than did this little shrine. To her 
as to Fetitpere the Deliverande was a little heav- 
en just now, but for Fetitpere Dick's presence or 
absence added but little to its splendor. There 
was Dick meanwhile, a shadowy living figure 



should prize it she never expected ; that he 
should return it had never once crossed her 
mind. All her longing was to see him and 
hear of him, and some day, perhaps, to do him 
some service, to be a help, to manifest her love 
in secret alms of self-devotiou, and fidelity, and 




in the dimness. Catharine could see him from 
where she sat by Heine. How happy she was. 
In all this visionary love of hers, only once had 
she thought of herself — that day when she sat 
by the well — at other times she had only 
thought of Dick, and poured out all the treas- 
ure in her kind heart before him. That he 



charity. She looked up at the string of silver 
hearts ; no longer did they seem to her em- 
blems of sad hearts hung up in bitterness, but 
tokens of gladness placed there before the 
shrine. 

Fetitpere was driving, and proposed to go 
back another way. The others sat face to face 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



59 



as the}' had come. The afternoon turned gray 
uiid a little chilly. Reine took Josette on her 
knee; Catharine wrapped Toto in her shawl. 
Dick had asked Catharine all the questions peo- 
ple ask by this time. He didn't see her doubt- 
ful face when he told her he had not waited for 
an answer to the letter announcing his coming. 

"Madame de Tracy isn't like you, Mademoi- 
selle Chretien," said Dick. " She doesn't 
snub people when they ask for hospitality." 

It struck Catharine a little oddly, afterward, 
that Dick should speak to Reine in this re- 
proachful tone ; that Reine should answer so 
shortly and yet so softly, so that one could 
hardly have told whether she was pleased or 
angry — at the time she only thouglit that he 
was there. Yesterday she had longed fur a 
sight of the lines his pen had scratched upon a 
paper; to-day slie was sitting opposite to him 
with no one to say one word. Petitpere's short 
cut was longer than it should have been, but 
Catharine would have gone on forever if she 
had held the reins. All the gray sky encom- 
]iassed them — all the fields spread into the dusk 
— the soft, fresh winds came from a distance. 
The pale yellow shield of tiie horizon was turn- 
ing to silver. The warm lights were coming 
out in the cottage lattices. As the evening 
closed in, they were sprinkled like glow-worms 
here and there in the country. Sometimes the 
cart passed under trees arching black against 
the pale sky ; once they crossed a bridge with a 
rush of water below. There was not much 
color any where, nor form in the twilight, but 
exquisite tone and sentiment every where. 

They passed one or two groups strolling and 
sitting out in the twiliglit as they approached 
Petitport, and the rushing of the sea seemed 
coming up to meet them at times. They were 
all very silent. Petitjiere had been humming 
a little tune to himself for the last half hour ; 
Dick had spoken to Reine once or twice, always 
in that bantering tone ; to Catharine he was 
charming, gay, and kind and courteous, and 
like himself in short. 

"Are you going to stay here, Mr. Butler?" 
asked Catharine once, suddenly.' 

"Only a day or two," Dick said abruptly. 
" I must go back for Beamish's wedding. I 
came because — because I could not keep away 
any longer, Miss George. Here we are at the 
chateau." 

"There is M. le Maire," cried Petitpere, pull- 
ing up abruptly. 

Fontaine had come down to look for Toto, 
who was asleep and A^ery tired. Tlie iiirhmi 
e'cossais slid off the little nodding head as Dick 
hauled the child to his father over the side of 
the cart. 

"Good-night, Reine, and thank you," Cath- 
arine said. "It has been — oh, such a happy 
day!" 

Fontaine only waited to assist Miss George 
to jump down, to express his surjirise and de- 
light at Mr. Butler's return, and then hurried 
oif with his little sleepy Toto. "I siiall come 



back in the evening," cried the maire, going off 
and waving his hat. 

" Monsieur Richard, you also get down here," 
said Petitpere, growing impatient at the horse's 
head, for Dick delayed and stood talking to 
Reine. 

The two had been alone with Josette in the 
cart for a minute. Now Richard took Reine's 
unwilling hand in his, and looked her fixedly 
in the face, but he only said, " Au revoir, Ma- 
demoiselle Reine, is it not so?" 

Reine seemed to hesitate, " Au revoir," she 
filtered at last, in the pathetic voice, and she 
looked away. 

Catharine was safely landed down below, and 
heard nothing. "He came because he could 
not help it," she was saying to herself over and 
over again. For the first time a wild wondering 
thrill of hope came into her head. It was a 
certainty while it lasted — she never afterward 
forgot that minute. She stood outside the iron 
gate, the moon was rising palelj', the evening 
seemed to thrill with a sudden tremor, the earth 
shook under her feet. While it lasted the cer- 
tainty was complete, the moment was perfect. 
How many such are there even in the most 
prosperous lives ? This one minute lasted until 
the cart drove away. 

As Catharine and Dick were walking slowly 
across the court together, he stopped short. "I 
know I can trust you. Miss George," he said. 
"I — I think you must have guessed how things 
are with me," and a bright look came into his 
face. " Pray do not say any thing here. Reine 
is a thousand times too good for me," he said, 
with a shake in his voice, "or for them, and 
they wouldn't understand ; and I can't aflbrd to 
marry yet, but I know I shall win her in time. 
Dear Miss George, I know you will keep my 
secret. We have always been friends, have we 
not ?" and he held out his hand. 

"Yes," Catharine said, in a dreamy sort of 
way, as if she wast hinking of something else. 
Friends ! If love is the faith, then friendship 
is the charity of life. Catharine said yes very 
softly, very gently, and put her hand into his, 
and then went away into the house. There 
was no bitterness in her heart, no pang of vanity 
wounded just then ; only an inexjiressible sad- 
ness had succeeded that instant of foolish, mad 
certainty. The real depth, and truth, and sweet- 
ness of her nature seemed stirred and brought 
to light by the blow which had sliattered the 
frail fabric she had erected for herself. But 
wlien she went up stairs into her room, the first 
thing she saw was the great nosegay of mar- 
guerites which the children had placed upon 
her table, and then she began to cry. 

She was quite calm when she came down 
again. Dick tried to speak to her again, but 
lie was somehow enveloped by Madame de 
Tracy, who was all the more glad to see him 
because she had written to him not to come. 

After dinner they all began to dance again, 
as they had done the night before, and Marthe 
went to the piano and began to play for them. 



CO 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



Ernestine ^vonld liavc likod, if possible, tliat all 
the gentlemen sliould have danced with her, 
tint that could not be so ; he was content to let 
the two little demoiselles de Vernon share in 
the amusements. Dick came and asked Miss 
George to dance, but she shook her head, and 
said she was tired. The little ball lasted some 
ten minutes perhaps, and ended as suddenly as 
it had begun. Marthe closed the piano with a 
sigh : she had very brilliant and supple fingers, 
and played with grace and sentiment ; it was a 
sort of farewell to which they had all been 
dancing. Ernestine put one hand into her 
husband's arm, and one into Dick's. " Come," 
she said, dragging them out through the open 
window. 

"Jeunesse! jeunesse !" said the countess 
kindly to Catharine as the young people went 
scampering and flitting across the grass and dis- 
appeared in the winding walks of the garden. 
Catharine answered with a faint smile. Ma- 
dame de Tracy took up the newspaper, and 
drew her chair to the lamp, and then it was 
that Catharine slid quietly out of the room, 
and crept along the front of the house, and 
suddenly began flying down the avenue to the 
straight terrace 'walk, from whence she could 
see the sea gleaming silver under the vast pur- 
ple-black dome of night. It was full moon 
again. All the light rippled over the country. 
The old pots on the parapet were turned to sil- 
ver. The trees shivered, and seemed to shake 
the moonlight from their twigs and branches. 
Once the far-away voices reached her through 
the silence ; but poor little Catharine only shiv- 
ered when she heai*d them. She felt so utterly 
forsaken, and out of tune and harmony in this 
vast harmony, that she found herself clinging to 
the old pot with the lichen creeping up the outer 
edge, and crying and crying as if her heart must 
break. Poor little moonstruck creature, shed- 
ding her silver tears in the moonlight ; she was 
like a little lichen herself, with iier soft hands 
grasping the cold stone, and crying over them, 
and asking them for sympathy. She shivered, 
but she did not heed the chill ; she seemed in- 
gulfed, as it were, in the great bitter sea of pas- 
sionate regret and shame, struggling and strug- 
gling, with no one to help. The moon traveled 
on, and now came streaming full upon the ter- 
race, changing every thing fantastically. The 
gleam of the lamp by which Madame de Tracy 
was standing pierced through the trees. Some- 
times a bird stirred in its sleep ; sometimes a 
dog barked in the valley. 

The voices which had sounded so distant 
presently came nearer and nearer; shadows, 
figures, sudden bursts of laughter, the shrill ex- 
clamations, the deeper tones of the men. Cath- 
arine, looking up, saw them all at the end of 
the walk : she could not face them ; she started 
and fled. The others saw the white figure flit- 
ting before them. 

"It is a ghost !" some one cried. 

" It is Mi«s George," said Dick. 

Catharine had no thought but to avoid them 



all just then as she went flying .along, only as 
slie was turning up the dark jjathway leading to 
the house a figure suddenly emerged into the 
moonlight. It was no ghost. It was only Fon- 
taine, with his eye-glasses gleaming in the moon 
rays. But she started and looked back, think- 
ing in vague despair where she should go to es- 
cape. Fontaine seemed to guess her thought— 

"Will you not remain one instant with me, 
mademoiselle ?" he said. "I was looking for 
you. Madame de Tracy told me I might find 
you here." 

He spoke oddly. There was a tone in his 
voice she had never heard before. What had 
come to him? Suddenly she heard him speak- 
ing again, thoroughly in earnest ; and when peo- 
ple are in earnest, their words come strongly 
and simply. All his affectations had left him ; 
his voice sounded almost angry and fierce. 

" I know that to you we country folks seem 
simple, and perhaps ridiculous at times," he 
said. " Perhaps you compare us with others, 
and to our disadvantage. But the day might 
come when you would not regret having ac- 
cepted the protection and the name of an honest 
man," cried Fontaine. " Madame de Tracy has 
told me of your circumstances — your sisters. 
You know me, and you know my son. The af- 
fection of a child, the devotion of a lifetime, 
count for something, do they not? And this at 
least I offer you," said Fontaine, "in all good 
faith and sincerity. You liave no mother to 
whom I can address myself, and I come to you, 
mademoiselle ; and I think you owe me an an- 
swer. " 

There was a moment's silence ; a little wind 
came rustling through the trees, bringing with 
it a sound of distant voices and laughter. Cath- 
arine shivered again ; it sounded so sad and so 
desolate. She found herself touched, and sur- 
prised, and frightened all at once by Fontaine's 
vehemence. In an hour of weakness he had 
found her. "Take it, take it," some A'oice 
seemed saying to her; "give friendship, since 
love is not for you !" It seemed like a strange 
unbelievable dream to be there, making up her 
mind, while the young people, laugliing still 
and talking, were coming nearer and nearer. 
Suddenly Fontaine saw a pale, wistful face in 
the moonlight — two hands put up helplessly. 
" Take me away, oh, take me away !" she said, 
with a sudden apjiealing movement. "I can 
do nothing for you in return, not even love 
you." 

"Do not say that, my child," said Fontaine. 
"Do not be afraid; all will be well." 

A minute later they were standing before 
Madame de Tracy. " She consents," said Fon- 
taine; "you were wrong, madame. How shall 
I ever thank you for making me know her ?" 

It was Dick who first told Reine the news 
of the engagement. "I don't half like her to 
marry that fellow, poor little thing," he said. 
Reine, who was churning — she always made a 
point of working harder when Dick was present 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



61 



than at any other time— looked at him over lier 
liarrel. "I should not have done it in her 
place," she said, "but then we are different." 
Dick thought her less kind at that minute than 
he had ever known her before. 

Love is the faith, and friendship should be 
the charity of life, and yet Reine in her own 
happiness could scarcely forpve Catharine for 
what slie had done. Guessing and fearing what 
she did, she judged her as she would have 
judged herself. She forgot that she was a 
strong woman, and Catharine a child still in 
many things, and lonely and unliapj)y, while 
Reine was a happy woman now, at last, for the 
first time. For her pride had given way, and 
the struggle was over. Beine, wiio would not 
come unwelcome into any family, who still less 
would consent to a secret engagement, had suc- 
cumbed suddenly and entirely when she saw 
Dick standing before her again. She had not 
answered his letter telling her that he would 
come and see her once more. She had vowed 
that she would never think of him again. When 
he had gone away the first time without speak- 
ing, she had protested in her heart ; but when 
he spoke to her at last, the protest died away on 
her lips, and in her heart too. And so it came 
about that these two were standing on either 
side of the churn, talking over their own hopes 
and future, and poor little Catharine's too. 
With all her hardness — it came partly from a 
sort of vague remorse — Reine's heart melted 
with pity when she thought of her friend, and 
instinctively guessed at her story. 

"Why do you ask me so many questions 
about Miss George?" Dick said at last. "Poor 
child, she deserves a better fate." 



CHAPTER XII. 

PLASTIC CIRCUMSTANCE. 

Once long afterward, Catharine, speaking of 
the time before her marriage, said to Reine, 

" Ah ! Reine, you can not imagine what it is 
to have been afraid, as I have been. I am 
ashamed, when I think of my cowardice and 
want of trust: and yet I do not know that if 
the time were to come again, I might not be as 
weak, in my foolish, wicked longing for a fan- 
cied security." 

"I don^t know whether strong people are 
more or less to be pitied than weak ones, when 
they are in perplexity," Reine answered, brusque- 
ly. "You are much mistaken if you think I 
have never been afraid. I tell you, thei-e have 
been days when I have been afraid of jumping 
over the cliiFinto the sea, like the swine in the 
Scriptures, to escape from tlie torments of the 
condemned. But we take tilings more at our 
ease now," said Reine, with a sigh. " One j 
would soon die of it, if one was always to be I 
young. And yet, for the matter of that," she 
added, glancing kindly at Catharine, "you look I 
to me very much as you did wlien I knew you ' 




first." And as she spoke Reine sent her shuttle 
swiftly whirling, and caught it deftly, while Jo- 
sette, who had grown up tall and pretty, stood 
by, scissors in hand, cutting the string into 
lengtlis. 

But this was long years afterward, Avhen Cath- 
arine looked back, as at a dream, to the vagne, 
and strange, and unreal time which had pre- 
ceded her marriage. There had been a qitick 
confusion, a hurry, a coming and going ; it 
seemed to her like a kaleidoscope turning and 
blending the old accustomed colors and forms 
of life into new combinations and patterns. 
Catharine had watched it all with a bewildered 
indifference. She had taken the step, she was 
starting on the journey through the maze of the 
labyrinth, she had not the heart to go back. 
There had been long talks and exjilanations 
which never explained, and indecisions that all 
tended one way, and decided her fate as cer- 
tainly as tiie strongest resolves. Once she had 
been on the very point of breaking every thing 
off"; and, looking back, she seemed to see her- 
self again — by the sea-side, watching the waves, 
and telling them that they should determine ; 
or tete-a-tete with Fontaine, silent and embar- 
rassed, trying to make him understand how lit- 
tle she had to give in return for all his attentive 
devotion. He would not, perhaps he could not, 
understand Iier feeling for him ? Why was she 
troubling herself? He looked conscious, elated, 
perfectly satisfied ; for Fontaine, like a wise 
man, regarded the outside aspect of things, and 
did not disturb himself concerning their secret 
and more difficult complications. She had 
promised to be his wife. She was a charming 
person, he required no more ; he had even de- 
clared that for the present he would not touch a 
single farthing of the small yearly sum which 
belonged to her. It was to be expended as 



62 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



heretofore upon the education of her sisters. 
In the holidays they were to find a home in the 
chalet. Fontaine felt that he was behaving 
liberally and handsomely, and it added to his 
satisfaction. Madame Me'rard groaned in ago- 
ny over her snuff-box at his infatuation. That 
her son-in-law should marry again she had al- 
ways expected ; " but never, never, Monsieur 
Me'rard, did I think him capable of a folly like 
this!" cried the old lady. Monsieur Me'rard, 
who was an extremely fat and good-humored 
old gentleman, tried to look as if the matter 
was not perfectly indifterent to him. There 
were but three things in life that really mat- 
tered ; all the rest must be taken as it came ; 
this was his experience : 

I. Your coffee should be hot in the morning. 

II. You should have at least five trumps be- 
tween you and your partner. 

III. Your washerwoman should not be allow- 
ed to starch your shirt-collars into uncomfort- 
able ridges. 

That very day she had sent them home in 
this horrible condition. Monsieur Mcrard could 
not turn his head without suffering. That Fon- 
taine should marry more or less to jilease Ma- 
dame Me'rard seemed a trifle in such an emer- 
gency. 

Dick was the only person who doubted the 
expediency of the proposed arrangement, or, at 
least, who said as much to Catharine herself. 
He found a moment to speak to her alone in 
the hall. 

"Forgive me," he said. "I know I of all 
peojile have the least light to speak ; but have 
you thought well over the tremendous import- 
ance of the step you are taking. You are 
young enough to look for something different 
from ... If you wanted a home, Rcine is al- 
ways there . . . Fontaine is an excellent fel- 
low; but your tastes are so unlike ; your whole 
education and way of thinking . . ." 

"You don't know what it is," said Catharine, 
controlling herself and speaking very gently ; 
"I shall have a home and some one to look 
to ;" but her heart sank as she spoke. 

Butler himself was one of those weak-minded 
natures that sometimes trouble themselves about 
other concerns besides their own and those of 
their own belongings. The stalwart hero who 
succeeds in life, loves his wife and his children, 
or the object of his affections, his friends, his 
dog, but worries himself no farther about the 
difficulties and sorrows, expressed and unex- 
pressed, by which he is surrounded. He does 
his day's work, exchanges good-humored greet- 
ings with the passers-by, but he lets them pass 
on. He would never, for instanre, dream of 
being sorry for a lonely, fanciful little woman 
who chanced to cross his path. He might throw 
her a sovereign if she were starving, and shut 
the door, but that would be the extent of his 
sympatliy. The Mr. Grundys of life are sensi- 
ble, manly fellows, business-like, matter-of-fact, 
and they would very sensibly condemn the fool- 
ish vagaries and compunctions of unpractical 



visionaries like Dick. And they are safer com- 
panions, periiaps, than others of finer nerve and 
more sympathetic fibre. Catharine might have 
been heart-whole and laughing still with the 
children in the garden if Dick Butler had be- 
longed to the tribe of Mr. Grundys. Unluckily 
for her, he was gentle and kind-hearted, and 
chivalrous after a fashion. He could not help 
being touched by helplessness and simplicity. 
He had said nothing to Catharine more than 
he had said to any of the young ladies of his 
acquaintance, but the mere fact of her depend- 
ence and inequality — although he would not 
own it — gave importance to what had no import- 
ance. It would have been truer kindness to 
have left her alone, for it is no longer the busi- 
ness of knights-errant to go about rescuing dam- 
sels in distress. 

And yet Dick had the gift, which does not 
belong to all men — a gift of sympathy and an 
intuitive tenderness. "What chance of happi- 
ness was there for that impressionable little 
creature with the well-meaning but tiresome 
Fontaine?" So he said to himself and to his 
aunt one day ; but Madame de Tracy only as- 
sured him that he was mistaken in his estimate 
of Fontaine. It was a charming arrangement, 
and Catharine was perfectly happy. 

Catharine's perfect happiness manifested it- 
self by a strange restlessness ; she scarcely ate, 
her dreams were troubled, music would make 
her eyes fill up with tears. " Voi che sapete," 
some one was singing one evening ; she could 
not bear it, and jumped up and went out through 
the open window into the night. She did not 
go very far, and stood looking in at them all, 
feeling like a little stray sprite out of the woods 
peering in at the happy united company assem- 
bled in the great saloon. 

Madame de Tracy Avas surprised and some- 
what disappointed at the silence and calmness 
with which Catharine accepted her new lot in 
life. She took the girl up into her room that 
night, and talked to her for nearly an hour, 
congratulated, recapitulated, embraced her af- 
fectionately, and then sat holding her band be- 
tween her own fat white fingers; but it was all 
in vain. Her heroine would not perform ; the 
little thing had no confidence to give in return ; 
she seemed suddenly to have frozen up ; still, 
chill, pale, answering only by monosyllables, si- 
lent and impenetrable, Catharine seemed trans- 
formed into somebody else. She was not un- 
grateful for the elder lady's kindness, but her 
eyes looked with a beseeching, fawn-like glance, 
wiiich seemed to say, " Only leave me— only let 
me be." This was not in the least amusing or 
interesting to Madame de Tracy or Catharine. 
It was a sort of slow torture. Dazed and a lit- 
tle stupefied, and longing for silence, to be ex- 
pected to talk sentiment when she felt none, to 
blush, to laugh consciously, to listen to all the 
countess's raptures and exclamations, was weary 
work. Tiie child did her best, tried to speak, 
but the words died away on her lips ; tried to 
say she was happy, but then a sudden jiain in 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



63 



her heart seemed to rise and choke her. What 
was she doiiiR? Dick disapproved. Was it too 
late to undo the work she had begun ? 

Fontaine did not come up to the chateau that 
evening. It was perhaps fortunate for him that 
he was detained by Madame Merard. Catha- 
rine thought not of the countess's congratula- 
tions, but of Dick's two words of warning that 
night, as she was sitting upon her bed half un- 
dressed, with all her hair tumbling about her. 
She could hear them all dispersing below, and 
Dick's voice humming Voi die sapete as he 
tramped along the gallery ; then a door banged, 
and all was silent. 

She was thinking of his words again in the 
court-yard next morning, sitting with her work 
upon a bench under a tree. The De Vernons, 
and Ernestine, and Dick were at the ])iano in 
the little boudoir, of which the windows were 
open. Little Henri was marching in and out, 
and beating time with his whip. The young 
people were singing and screaming with laugh- 
ter, and banging false notes on the piano some- 
times, and laughing again. "Take care, Hen- 
ri, do not get out of the window," cried liis moth- 
er from within ; but Henri paid no attention. 
The gay jangle went on, and the laughter and 
music poured .out to where Catharine was sit- 
ting with her chin resting on her two folded 
hands. She could see through the iron gates ; 
beyond the road lay a distance smiling in sun- 
shine. She watched the smoke from a chim- 
ney drifting in the breeze. "Clang a rang, 
clang a rang, Ta ra, ta ta ra," sang the young 
people ; and then came a burst of laughter, and 
then more voices joined in. Catharine recog- 
nized Dick's in the medley of sounds. The sun 
shone hotter and hotter ; a chestnut fell to the 
ground with a sudden snap, and tlie brown, 
bright fruit showed tli rough the green pod. 
Again the music sounded and her ribbon flut- 
tered gently. How ha])py they all seemed ! 
What good spirits Butler wa|§in ! The languid 
young Englisliman seemed to have caught some- 
thing of the life and gayety of the people among 
whom he was staying. But he had looked 
grave when he spoke to her, Catharine thought. 
How good of him to think of her! Just then 
he came out and quickly crossed the yai"d with- 
out seeing her. "Do not be late," cried Er- 
nestine from the window. 

Dick nodded, and strode away along the dusty 
road toward the village. Catharine watched him 
from under her tree until he disappeared, and 
Henri and Nanine came up disposed for con- 
versation, and bringing a supply of chestnuts for 
Miss George's work-basket. 

"Mon cousin is very disagreeable," Henri said. 
" He would not take me with him. I don't care 
for him any more." 

" Mademoiselle, what stuff is this?" said Na- 
nine, taking hold of Catharine's gown. "Some- 
thing English, is it not ? Have you many more 
toilettes in your box up stairs? Though to be 
sure," added the child, with instinctive polite- 
ness, " one does not require much when one is 



traveling, and you did not expect to remain with 
us long." * 

"I brought all the prettiest dresses I had, 
Nanine," Catharine said, sadly, wondering how 
much the children knew already. " Why do 
you think I am not going to stay with you ?" 

Nanine turned red and did not answer ; but 
Henri cried out, "Oh no. Mademoiselle la Cu- 
rieuse. Miss George has found you out. Miss 
George, she heard mamma say there was no room 
for you at Paris the day grandmamma was an- 
gry, and mamma had her migraine. It is not 
jiretty to listen, is it?" said Henri, who had not 
forgiven certain sisterly lectures. 

Miss George blushed too, like Nanine, and did 
not answer. She began slowly throwing the 
chestnuts one by one into the basket at her side, 
and then suddenly started up. All tlie chest- 
nuts which had remained in her lap fell to the 
ground and rolled away. She left the amazed 
children to collect their scattered treasures. It 
was a nothing that the children had inadvert- 
ently revealed to her, and yet in her excited 
state it seemed the last drop in her cup. '-What 
did it all mean?" she said to herself. "Who 
can I trust ? where can I go ? Only Mr. Butler 
and Heine speak the truth to me. Ah ! would 
Reine help me if I went to her? I think — I 
think she cares for me a little." 

IMeanwhile Dick, who had not gone to the vil- 
lage after all, was walking along the cliff to the 
fiirm. He found "Reine sitting in the window 
of the kitchen, with her head resting upon her 
hand, as perplexed as Catharine herself, only 
fiicing her troubles and looking to no one else 
for help. What was she afraid of? She scarce- 
ly knew. She was afraid for Dick far moi'e than 
for herself. 

Who can account for painful impressions? 
Reine's was a strong and healthy organization, 
and of all people she would have seemed the 
least likely to be subject to vague terrors, to 
alarms indefinite and without a cause ; and yet 
there were moments of foreboding and depres- 
sion against which she found it almost impossi- 
ble to struggle ; almost, I say, because therein 
did her healthy and strengthful nature reassert 
itself, battling with these invisible foes, and re- 
sisting them valiantly. 

She, too, sometimes asked herself whether she 
had done wisely and well ? Whether she, a 
simple country girl, without experience of the 
world, would ever be able to suffice to a grand 
seigneur like Dick. Once she had thought her- 
self more than his equal, but that was over now. 
She was rich and he was poor, he told her; but 
it was a magnificent sort of poverty, and the 
word had not the same meaning for him as it 
had for old Nanon, for example, mumbling her 
crusts. 

"Ah! was he, could he be in earnest?" 
Reine asked herself. Dick's languid manner 
might have been that of any young Machiavel 
of society ; it frightened her sometimes, though 
she laughed at it to him; but his heart was a 



G4 

simple blundering machine, full of kindness and 
softness. There was a reakouch of genius about 
him for all his crude workmanship. Wliatever 
people may say, genius is gentle and full of ten- 
derness. It is cleverness which belongs perhaps 
to the children of this world. Some very dull 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 

Keine was rot troubling herself about such 
speculations, but she trembled sometimes for 
Dick, even more than for herself, and asked 
herself whether he might not do himself injury 
by marrying her? and so she told him when he 
came in" now, and took her hand and kissed it, 




Dick and Reine 



and sad people have genius, though the world 
may not count it as such— a genius for love, or 
for patience, or for prayer, maybe. We know 
the divine spark is here and there in this world — 
who shall say under what manifestation or lium- 
ble disguise? 



and asked what she was thinking of, and why 
she looked so disturbed. 

Her answer did not quite please him some- 
how, tliough as she spoke she looked more beau- 
tiful tlian^he had ever seen her, blushing, witli 
tender deep eyes, as she sat in the light of the 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIEF. 



65 



winiiow. "Why do you always want to take 
care of me?" said Butler. "Am I not big 
enough to take care of myself? Reine, when 
we are married I shall take care of you too. I 
shall not let you work any more, and I shall 
paint you just as you look now, and not one of 
the fine ladies will be able to hold a candle to 
you." 

" They will despise me," said Reine, " as they 
did my mother ; perhaps for your sake they will 
just touch me with the end of their fans. You 
"know well enough that it is from no want of 
love for you that I speak," said Reine, blushing 
more deeply. "I love you so well that I had 
rather you left me here now this moment than 
that you were ever ashamed of me or sorry for 
what you have done," and suddenly Reine the 
overbearing, Reine the magnificent, burst into 
tears. 

Dick tried to reassure her, to console her, by 
every tender word he could think of; but Reine, 
recovering and ashamed of her weakness, pushed 
him away. "Go, go," she said, as he bent over 
her, full of concern and gentleness. He was a 
little hurt; he loved her, but he could not al- 
ways understand her — her odd abruptness and 
independence — her strange moods. He turned 
away — how well he remembered the scene in 
after years ! The quaint, straggling room, with 
its odd, picturesque accessories, even the flower- 
pot in the window, and the faint scent from its 
blossoms ; Reine's noble head bent low, and the 
light upon it. He turned away, and as he did 
so he caught sight for one instant of a pale face 
looking in through the window — a pale, wistful, 
sad face, that disappeared in a moment. Poor 
sad eyes ! the sight of the two togetlier was more 
than they could bear. Human nature is very 
weak as well as very strong. Catharine had 
come across the sultry fields, looking to the farm 
for help and consolation. If Reine also advised 
it, she thought she would break forever with the 
schemes she had consented to ; go back, work 
hard, and struggle on as best she could. Dear 
Reine! she at least could be depended upon. 
Coming to the farm at last, she had found only 
Paris to welcome her with a lazy wag of his tail. 
There was no one about ; all the doors were 
shut ; even the house-door, with its bars and 
heavy-headed nails all distinct in the sun. She 
tapped once or twice without being heard. She 
turned away at last disappointed, thinking Reine 
must be out in the fields ; and then, as she turn- 
ed, she glanced in through the window and saw 
the two. Catharine could think of them to- 
gether with a certain gentle, loving sym] athy ; 
but to come knocking at the door wanting help, 
and not be heard ; to stand by. unnoticed, and 
see them engrossed, utterly oblivious of her ex- 
istence — oh, it was ha.rd; life was cruel, friend- 
ship was an illusion ! 

" Can any thing be the matter?" Dick said, 
starting up. "That was little Miss George." 
And he went to the door and looked out. He 
was only in time to see the little figure disap- 
pearing under the archway. 



Reine wiped her tears out of her eyes — I don't 
know that she was the less sad for that — she 
came to the doorway and stood beside him. 
" Poor child !" she said ; " was she looking in ?" 
" She looked very strange," said Richard. 
"It may have been my fancy — " And then, 
catching Reine's steady gaze, he turned red in 
his turn. " Don't look like that, dear," said 
he, trying to laugh, "or I shall think it was a 
ghost I saw." 

A ghost indeed ! the ghost of a dead love. 
Only yesterday some one was saying, with a 
sigh, " There are other deaths sadder than death 
itself: friendships die and people live on, and 
love dies too, and that is the saddest of all." 
The saddest of all ! and sometimes people come 
and look in through windows and see it. 

Petitpere came in a minute after, and found 
Reine and Richard still standing in the doorway. 
"What have you been doing to the little de- 
moiselle Anglaise ?" said he. " She passed 
close by the barn just now without speaking to 
me, and I think she was crying." 

Catharine meanwhile was going quickly away 
from the place, leaving them, " together in their 
happiness," so she kept telling herself. She 
hurried along the dusty road;' she did not go 
back to the house, but she took a footway lead- 
ing to the cliflf, and she came to the edge at"flast 
and looked over. The small sandy convolvulus- 
es were creeping at her feet, the wind shook the 
dry, faint-colored, scentless flowers. The wave- 
lets were rolling in, and the light struck and 
made fire upon each flashing crest. She clam- 
bered down the side of the clift' by a narrow lit- 
tle pathway which the fishermen had made there, 
and she came down upon the beach at last, and 
went stumbling over the shingle, and sea-weed, 
and heaps of sea-drift. 

Catharine had gone stumbling along under 
the shadow of the cliff. She did not care or 
think where she was going. She had come 
upon the smooth, rippled sands; the sea was 
swelling inland in a great rushing curve. She 
had passed the village ; she heard the sounds 
of life overhead as she went by ; she had come 
to the terrace at the end of Fontaine's garden. 
A little river of sea-water was running in a cleft 
in the sand. Catharine had to jump to cross 
it. Ever afterward she remembered the weary 
effort it was to her to spring. But she crossed 
the little ford, and came safely to the other side ; 
and it was at this instant that somebody, rush- 
ing up, came and clasped her knees with many 
expressions of delight. It was Toto, who in his 
little childish squeak gladly exclaimed, " I saw 
you from the cabane. Papa sent me, and I 
ran." Tlie child was clinging to her still when 
Fontaine himself made his ajipearance, slipper- 
ed, and newspaper in hand, hastening to wel- 
come her. 

"Were you coming to find us, chere demoi- 
selle ?" said he. " Come, you are at home, you 
know." 

Was she indeed at home ? Catharine felt as 
if she had been crazy for a few minutes with 



C6 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



doubt, mistrust, indecision. She hated herself, 
and felt herself unworthy of Fontaine's kind- 
ness, and yet she was inexj)ressibly touched and 
cheered by it. She said to herself that she had 
found a friend in her sore necessity — that she 
should never, never forget his kindness, and in- 
deed she kept her vow. This was the last of 
her indecisions. 

A little later Fontaine walked back to the 
chateau with her. As they were going along 
she asked him if he knew that they had meant 
to send her away when they left for Paris ? 

" Chere demoiselle," said he, " how should I 
know it ? It may or may not be true. I care 
not, since you remain." 

"I felt as if nobody wanted me," Catharine 
said, as they went in at the gates together. 

Butler was alone on the terrace, smoking a 
cigar, wiien they came back. When he saw 
them he got up and came to meet them. He 
looked a little curious, a little languid, and 
slightly sentimental. 

"Why did you go away?" he said. "I 
rushed out to call you. Miss George, but you 
would have nothing to do with us." 

"I — I did not want to stop just then," she 
said, hastily. He had recognized her then ! 
She turned to Fontaine in a confused sort of 
wayjand called him to her. 

" Charles," she said, calling him by his Chris- 
tian name for tlie first time, " have you . . . 
Will you . . ." The words died away. But 
after that first moment slie was quite outwardly 
calm again. Butler had recognized her. She 
made a great effort. She spoke quietly and in- 
differently, while to lierself she said passionately 
that at least he could not read her heart. She 
had taken her resolution, she would abide by it. 

Reine, in her place, would have done diflFer- 
ently. Catharine was doing wrong, perhaps, 
but with no evil intent — she was false with a 
single heart. She thought there was no other 
solution to her small perplexities than this des- 
perate one she had taken. If she had been 
older she would have been wiser. Wait. That 
is the answer to most sorrows, to most troubled 
consciences. But how can one believe in this 
when one has not waited for any thing ? Some 
one says, very wisely and touchingly, "To the 
old, sorrow is sorrow ; to the young, sorrow is 
despair." What other interpretation may there 
not be hidden beneath the dark veil to those who 
can see from afar ? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Mendelssohn's wedding-march. 

Catharine Butler was to have been mar- 
ried on the 10th, but old Mr. Beamish was sud- 
denly taken ill, and every thing had to be put 
oft' indefinitely. Dick offered himself to remain 
at Tracy until after Catharine George's wed- 
ding. 

This wedding was fixed for a very early date. 



Madame de Tracy was anxious to have it over 
before she left for Paris. Lady Farebrother, 
who was written to, sent back her consent in 
a strange jumble of religion and worldliness. 
Mrs. Buckington, to every body's surprise, came 
out with a fifty-pound note for Catharine's trous- 
seau. The modest little outfit did not take long 
to make ready. Fontaine undertook the other 
necessary arrangements at Caen, for from the 
difference of religion there were some slight 
complications beyond those which usually attend 
weddings. The day came very quickly, almost 
unexpectedly and suddenly at last, like most 
eventful days. 

Tlie Protestant church is a great, gray, vault- 
like place, with many columns and sad-colored 
walls. Catharine, who had slept at Caen the 
night before in a house belonging to the I)e Ver- 
nons, came driving up to the door with Madame 
de Tracy just as the party arrived from Petitport 
by the early train. They all passed in together, 
but Catharine felt a chill as she came into the 
sombre place. It was so big, so full of echoes; 
some one brushed against a chair as the little 
procession passed up the centre aisle, the dismal 
scraping sound reverberated from column to 
column. The clergyman was a kind-looking, 
white-haired old man, who read the service in 
a plaintive, mumbling voice. He was only 
passing through the place ; he knew none of the 
people, but he was interested in the little sweet- 
eyed bride, and long afterward he remembered 
her when he met her again. Fontaine was un- 
comfortable, and very glad when this part of 
the ceremony was over. There was no know- 
ing where these mysterious rites to which he was 
exposed, defenseless and without redress, might 
not lead him. He was not anxious for Catha- 
rine. She was inured to it, and she was so 
docile and gentle, too, that nothing would be 
counted very heavily against her ; but for a good 
Catiiolic like himself, who knew better, who had 
been carefully instructed, there was no saying 
what dangers he might not be incurring. 

The service was soon over, but Madame de 
Tracy had made some mistake in her orders, 
and when the wedding-party came out into the 
peristyle of the church, the carriages had both 
disappeared. It was but a short way to the 
church where they were going. Most of them 
had intended to walk, and there was now no 
other alternative. " Venez, madame," said 
Jean de Tracy, offering Catharine his arm, while 
Fontaine followed with Madame de Tracy ; then 
came Marthe, with some children ; and last of 
all, Dick, and a strange lady, who had also ar- 
rived from Petitport by the early train. It was 
not Madame Me'rard. She, naturally enough, 
refused to be present at the ceremony ; Madame 
Ernestine, too, found it quite out of the ques- 
tion to be up at such an impossible hour. The 
strange lady was handsomely dressed in a gray 
silk gown and a pale-colored Cashmere shawl. 
She kept a little apart from the rest, never lifting 
her eyes ofi^ her book during the service. Ma- 
dame de Tracy could not imagine who she was 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



07 



at first, but Catharine's eyes brightened when 
she saw her. 

The strange lady looked a little ashamed, and 
shy, and fierce at once. She had fancied peo- 
ple stared at her as she came along: and no 
wonder, for a more beautiful and noble-looking 
young creature than Heine Chre'tien at that time 
never existed. Under iier bonnet her eyes 
looked bigger and brighter, and her rippled hair 
was no longer hidden under the starch of her 
cap ; she came up with a certain grace and state- 
ly swing which she had caught from her mother. 
Secretly, she felt uncomfortable in her long- 
trained gown ; but she came bravely along, as 
if she had been used to her draperies all her life. 
Dick was amused and interested to see his peas- 
ant maiden so transformed. 

"Reine, I never should have dared to fall in 
love with you if I had first known you like this," 
said he, watching his opportunity, and taking his 
place beside her. 

"Don't laugh at me," said Eeine. 

" What a dismal affair this has been ! I know 
my aunt has cooked the whole thing up," Dick 
went on. "They are not in the least suited to 
each other." 

Heine sighed. " Ill-assorted marriages nev- 
er answer," she said, in the quick, harsh tones 
she sometimes used. 

" But well-assorted marriages, mademoiselle," 
said Dick, gayly and kindly, and then he stopped 
short. A sad glance had crossed his ; Catha- 
rine looked back with her pale face, and the 
young man, who always said out wluxt was in 
his mind, began pitying her to his companion. 

Reine, never very talkative, became quite si- 
lent by degrees. 

Some bells were ringing from some of the 
steeples, and to Catharine they seemed playing 
one of the bars of Mendelssohn's wedding-march 
over and over again. They were passing by 
some of those old wooden houses which still ex- 
ist in tlie quaint old city, piled with carvings, 
and balconies, and flowers, chiefly balsams, flam- 
ing against tiie blackened walls ; heads were 
peeping through the windows, casements were 
gleaming. It was like the realization of a fan- 
cy Catharine once had long ago, when she was 
listening to Beamish in the studio. 

"How loudly those bells are ringing! they 
will break their necks," said Jean de Tracy, by 
way of something to say, for conversation was a 
little dirticult under the circumstances, and si- 
lence was diflicult too. 

All round the church of St. Pierre there is a 
flower-garden. The church stands at the end 
of the quai, and at the meeting of many streets. 
The market-people were in groujis all about 
when the wedding-party arrived. There seemed 
to be an unusual stir in the place. It is always 
gay and alive ; to-day it was more than usual- 
ly crowded with white caps, and flowers, and 
blouses, and baskets of vegetables. Jean de 
Tracy, who was used to the place, led the way 
across to a side door, which he opened and held 
back for Catharine to pass in, but she waited 



until the others came up. Fontaine and Ma- 
dame de Tracy first entered, the others follow- 
ing after, and then there was a sudden stop, and 
no one advanced any farther. If the Protestant 
temple seemed melancholy, this was terrible to 
them as they came in out of the cheerful clatter 
and sunshine, into a gloom and darkness which 
startled them all. ^The high altar was hung 
completely in black ; the lights burnt dimly : by 
degrees, when they could distinguish more clear- 
ly, they saw that figures in mourning were pass- 
ing up the long aisle, while voices at the altar 
were chanting a requiem for the dead. Cath- 
arine gave a little cry, and seized hold of some 
one who was standing near her. 

"Ah ! how terrible !" cried Madame de Tra- 
cy, involuntarily. 

"There must be some mistake," said Dick. 
"Have we come to the wrong church ?" 

" It often happens so in our churches," Reine 
said, quietly taking Catharine's hand. "I do 
not think there is any mistake." 

Fontaine and Jean de Tfticy went hastily for- 
ward to speak to an official who was advancing 
up a side aisle. As Reine said, there was no 
mistake — they were expected ; a little side-altar 
had been made ready for them, where I'Abbe 
Verdier's well-known face somewhat reassured 
them, but not entirely. We all know that the 
marriage service goes on though there are 
mourners in the world. Why not face the 
truth? and yet it was sad and very depressing. 
The ceremony was hurried through, but Catha- 
rine was sobbing long before it came to an end. 
Marthe was the person who was least moved. 
It put her in mind of her own profession, now 
soon approaching, when neither marriage nor 
burial-service, but something between the two, 
would be read over her. Reine was trying to 
cheer and reassure the children. Toto said he 
wanted to go ; he was frightened, and began to 
whimper, and at last Reine took him out into 
the porch. 

Butler, who always seemed to know where 
she was, followed her a minute after, and stood 
with her under the noble old porch, with its or- 
namentations and gurgoyles carved against the 
blue of the sky ; stony saints and flowers, fan- 
tastic patterns, wreaths, birds flying, arch built 
upon arch, delightful bounty and intricate love- 
liness, toned and tinted by the years which had 
passed since these noble gates were put up to 
the house of the Lord, and the towers overhead 
were ))iled. Dick thought he should be well 
content to stand there with Reine like the ab- 
bots and saints all about, and see the centuries 
go by, and the great tides of the generations of 
peo]dc. 

Reine was busy meanwhile answering Toto's 
impatient little questions; her shawl was half 
slijiping off as she leant against a niche in the 
wall ; with one hand (it was a trick she had) 
she was shading her eyes from the sun, with the 
other she was holding Toto's little stout fist. 

" I am trying to give you a name," said Dick 
at last, smiling. "I do not know what noble 



68 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



lady was martyred in Cashmere, for whom you I 
might stand, in your niche, just as you are." 

As he spoke, some more of the mourners 
passed in. It was the funeral of a high digni- j 
tary in the place, and numbers of people were 
attending it. "What a sad wedding for poor 
Catharine," Heine said, looking after them. 

"Poor little thing! It^nust be almost over 
now," Dick answered. 

"I shall not be sorry for one, if it were, only 
to get rid of all this," said Reine, tugging at 
her great Indian shawl, "and to go back to Pe- 
titport quietly in my own every-day clothes." 

" I think, after all, I like you best in your 
cap and apron," said Butler, looking at her crit- 
ically. 

"I knew it — I knew it!" Reine cried, sud- 
denly flashing up ; " I am not used or fit for 
any thing else but what I am accustomed to. 
I often feel, if I ever put off my poor peasant 
dress, it may turn out an evil day for you and 
me. You might change and be ashamed of me 
perhaps, and ... * 

"Hush, Reine," saidButler; "it isn't worthy 
of you to have so little trust in me. Why 
wouldn't you believe me the other day, as now, 
when I tell you . . ." 

" Shall I tell you what makes me mistrust 
you ?" the girl answered, and her eyes seemed 
to dilate, and then she suddenly broke off and 
went on angrily: "Ah! I am no angel from 
heaven ; I have told you that often enough. 
We in our class are not like you others. We 
don't pretend to take things as they come, and 
to care, as you do, for nothing, nor do we wom- 
en trick our husbands, and speak prettily to 
them as if tliey were children to be coaxed and 
humored. I have good blood in my veins, but 
I am a woman of the people for all that, and I 
love frankness above all things ; and there are 
things belonging to this dress — belonging to 
rich peojjle I hate, and I always shall hate ; 
never will I condescend to deceive you, to pre- 
tend to be what I am not. I can not dissem- 
ble, do you see?" she cried; "and if there is 
any thing in my mind, it comes out in time — 
hatred, or jealousy, or whatever it may be." 

" You are pretending to be what you are not 
when you make yourself out worse than you 
are," Dick said gravely, chipping off a little 
piece of the cathedral with his penknife. The 
little bit of soft stone fell to the ground like 
dust. Reine looked up, hesitated, and suddenly 
calmed down. Forgive me," she said at last, 
with a thrilling low voice; "I was wrong to 
doubt you ;" and she tore off her glove and put 
her honest hand in his. Butler was touched, 
and stooped and kissed it ; but he wished, and 
in his turn hated himself for wishing, that she 
had not pulled off her glove. 

And so the martyr came out of her niche, and 
it was time to go ; but before the wedding-party 
left the church some one whispered to M. Fon- 
taine to come out by the side door, for the fu- 
neral carriages were drawn up at the great front 
entrance. 



Fontaine took his wife away to Rouen for a 
fortnight's distraction after the ceremony. While 
the two were going off in a nervous tete-a-tete in 
the coup€ of a railway carriage, the others were 
returning to Tracy, silent and depressed, for the 
most part, like people after an unsuccessful ex- 
pedition. 

"I am going to smoke a cigar," said Dick, 
looking in at the door of the carriage where Ma- 
dame de Tracy, and Marthe, and the children 
were installed. De Tracy, hearing this, started 
up from his seat and said he would come too, 
and Dick walked along the second-class car- 
riages until he had made his selection. 

In one corner of a crowded department sat a 
peasant-girl with two great baskets at her knees. 
De Tracy got in without even observing her, sat 
down at the other end of the bench, and let 
down the window and puffed his smoke out into 
the open air. Dick did not light liis cigar after 
all, but sat turning one thing and another in his 
iiead. Once looking up, he caught the glance 
of Heine's two kind eyes fixed upon him, and 
he could not help saying, "What has become of 
the grand lady. Mademoiselle Chre'tien ?" Reine 
pointed to her baskets and looked down, trying 
to be grave. Butler did not speak to her any 
more ; the compartment was full of blouses ; he 
had only wanted to see her safe to her journey's 
end. 

Dominique was at the station with the cart 
he had brought for Reine, and the Tracy car- 
riage was waiting too. Madame de Tracy, nod- 
ding greetings right and left, got in, followed by 
Marthe, and the children, and little Toto, who 
was to spend a couple of days at the chateau 
before he went to his grandmotlier. Madame 
de Tracy knew every body by name, and gra- 
ciously inquired after numbers of Christian 
names. 

"Jean, there is that excellent Casimir," 
pointing to a repulsive-looking man with one 
eye. "Bring him here to me. How do you 
do? How is your poor wife? Ah! I forgot 
you are not married. How are you yourself? 
Not coming, Jean ? Then drive on, Jourdain. 
Baptiste, put Monsieur Toto on my great fur 
cloak; yes, my child, you must, indeed; I should 
never forgive myself if you were to catch cold now 
your papa is away. Never mind being a little 
too warm." And so the carriage load drove off 
in slight confusion, poor Toto choking, and try- 
ing in vain to get his mouth out of tlie fur. 

Meanwhile Dick went and helped Reine into 
her cart with as much courtesy as if slie was a 
duchess getting into a magnificent chariot. She 
blushed, nodded good-night, and drove off im- 
mediately ; and then Butler came back and 
joined his cousin, who was standing hy, looking 
rather surprised. 

" Come along, my Don Quixote," said Jean, 
turning oft' the little platform and striking out 
toward the fields. It was a quiet twilight walk. 
They both went on in silence for a time. There 
was a sound of grasshoppers quizzing at their 
feet from every grass tuft and distant cop]iice 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



69 



and hedgerow. One or two villagers passed 
them, tramping home to their cottages. 

"I hope my mother is satisfied," said Jean 
de Tracy at last, "and easy in her mind. I 
must confess, Dick, that I myself had some mis- 
givings. That poor little thing! I could see 
very well that it was not Fontaine she was think- 
ing of all the time. He ! It is not the first 
wedding I have been at." 

Dick could not answer ; he felt horribly guilty 
and uncomfortable. " Heaven knows," he was 
thinking to himself, "I am unconscious of ever 
having said a word or done any thing to make 
that poor child fancy I cared for her!" . . . . 
He was haunted by the remembrance of that 
pale foce looking in tlirough the window, and 
yet it might have been a mere chance after all. 
His course was plain enough now ; to Reine he 
had spoken words of love ; to her he was bound 
by every tie of honor and sincere affection, and 
yet his head was full of all sorts of regrets and 
remorses. Reine's sudden outbreak had left a 
discomfort in his mind which he tried in vain to 
shake off— a discomfort which concerned Reine 
herself as well as poor little Catharine. He be- 
gan to hate concealment, to tell himself that the 
sooner he had done with mysteries the better. 
Should he tell them all now, directly ; should 
he speak to his cousin here walking beside him, 
and tell him of his plans, or wait a little longer 
•until he had spoken to his uncle Charles first 
before declaring himself to the others ? On 
the whole, he decided this last plan woidd be 
best. But he vowed to himself that Reine at 
least should have no cause to reproach him. 
"At all events, she is rich ; they ought to ap- 
prove of that," thought Dick, bitterly. " I shall 
have a terrible time of it, but that can not be 
helped." He Avould work hard and make him- 
self independent, and brave the coming storm. 
It was true that she had enough for them both, 
even now ; but to accept her money was an im- 
possibility, and she had acknowledged it her- 
self when she had once told him how rich she 
was. 

Now that Reine knew him better, that a cer- 
tain education in the way of the world had come 
to her, she began to understand better than she 
had done before their relative positions. It was 
no longer the poor and struggling artist aspiring 
to the hand of the rich y^v/n'tre who had been 
so courted and much made of by the small dig- 
nitaries and needy }woprittalres of the place. 
She understood better the differences between 
them ; she began to see the gulf which she must 
' cross if she did not wish to shock him and re- 
pulse him unconsciously at almost every step. 
He could not come to her as she had imagined 
once : she must go to him. Her heart failed 
her sometimes. That sham, idle, frittering, fidg- 
ety, trammeled, uneasy life had no attractions 
for her. Reine imagined herself playing the 
piano and nodding her head in time, and occa- 
sionally fanning herself with a scented pocket- 
handkerchief, and burst out laughing at the 
idea. Her notions of society were rather vague, 



and Dick hardly knew how to explain to her the 
things he was so used to. 

"I hope you will never fan yourself with 
your pocket-handkerchief," he said, when Reine 
described her visions for the future. He owned 
to himself sometimes that she was right in what 
she said. He liked her best when he thought 
of her as herself, at home in her farm, with her 
servants and her animals round her. There she. 
was, simple, and gentle, and thoughtful in all' 
her ministrations, occupied always, unselfish, 
and only careful for others. After that last out- 
break she met him with a sweet humility and 
womanliness which charmed him and touched 
him utterly. The night he said good-by to her 
she came out with him under the great arch, 
and stood looking at him with her noble tender 
face, 

" Fate has done its best to separate us, has it 
not?" said Reine, smiling; "putting us like 
this, on diiferent sides of the sea. But you will 
come back — is it not so?" she said, "and I 
have no fear any more. I shall wait for you 
here." 

The sunset was illuminating the old fiirm and 
the crumbling barns, and Petipere's blue smock 
and white locks, as he sat on his bench smoking 
his evening pipe ; some cows were crossing the 
road from one field to another, with tinkling 
bells sounding far into the distance ; the great 
dog came up and rubbed his head at his mis- 
tress's knee. " He will know you again," Jleine 
said, holding out both her hands, "when you 
come back to me," and so they parted. 

The next day the whole family of Tracys 
started together for Paris. Madame mere in a 
huge bonnet, which almost completely concealed 
her face, was assisted from her apartment by her 
grandson to a close carriage. She was anxious 
to considt some Paris doctors on the state of her 
health. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MADAME FONTAINE AT HOME IN THE CHALET. 

When Catharine and her husband returned, 
from their trip a fortnight later and looked out 
through the diligpnce windows at the chateau, 
the blinds were drawn, the shutters shut, the 
garden chairs were turned up on their seats, the 
great iron gates were closed fast. Catharine 
never had realized so completely that she was 
not coming back there any more, but to the lit- 
tle chalet with the balconies and weathercocks 
which Madame de Tracy had shown her. It 
was like the story of Rip Van Winkle .- she had 
been away among the elves and gnomes a hund- 
red years. Every body was gone that she was 
used to: Dick was gone, the others dispersed 
here and there ; most of the strangers lodging 
in the village had left ; even Catharine George 
had vanished ; Monsieur and Madame Merard 
had retired to their campagne. It was a mouldy 
little villa on the high road to Bayeux ; but 
Fontaine assured her from experience that they 



70 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



would doubtless return before long. Perhaps 
in his heart of hearts the worthy maire regretted 
that his tete-a-tete sliould be so soon interrupted, 
but he blamed himself severely for the inconsid- 
erate feeling. "After all that I owe to these 
excellent parents," he explained, " the magnifi- 
cent dot which their daughter brought me, I feel 
that they must always look upon the chalet as 
their home whenever they feel inclined to do 
so. You, 7na tres-chcre amie, are gifted with a 
happy and equable temper : I know you will not 
hesitate to bestow upon them those filial atten- 
tions which are so graceful when accorded by 
youth to old age. Believe me, I shall not be 
ungrateful." 

Catharine smiled at the solemn little address : 
she was glad that there was any thing she could 
do for her husband. For already his kindness, 
his happiness, his entire contentment, had made 
her asliamed. "Ah ! it was cruel to have taken 
so much, to have so little to give in return," slie 
had thought once or twice. At least she would 
do her duty by him, she told lierself, and it was 
with a very humble and yet hopeful heart that 
she passed the threshold of her new home. Toto 
was there to welcome them, and to trample upon 
all the folds of Catharine's muslin dress with 
his happy little feet, and Justine, the excellent 
cook, came out to stare at the new inmate of the 
chalet. ■ 

'^ Soi/ez la bienvemie" said Fontaine, embrac- 
ing his wife affectionately ; and tiiey all three 
sat down very happily, to dine by the liglit of 
the lamp. The entertainment began with a 
melon. 

' ' Grandmamma is coming on Saturday week," 
said Toto. " Mr. Pelottier will call for them on 
his way back from Caen." 

" Ah ! so much the better," said Justine, who 
was carrying away the empty dishes. Justine 
did not ap])rove of second marriages. 

Madame Fontaine soon found that she would 
have little or nothing to do with the domestic 
arrangements in the chalet. She was much too 
greatly in awe of Justine, the excellent cook, 
who had fried Fontaine's cutlets for fifteen years, 
to venture to interfere in the kitchen. Fontaine 
himself had been accustomed, during his long 
bachelor life and after his first wife's death, to 
interest himself in the cares of the menage. He 
superintended tlie purchase of fish, the market- 
ing, the proper concocting of the pot-au-feu. 
He broke sugar, and made himself generally 
useful in the house. He might be discovered 
sometimes of a fine morning busily em])loyed in 
the court-yard, sawing up ])ieces of wood for the 
stove. He cut pegs with his penknife to hang 
up the clothes in the field ; he had even assisted 
on occasion to get them in before a shower came 
down. He knocked nails, gardened, mended 
windows, signed papers for the villagers, con- 
tracts of marriage, agreements, disagreements. 
The people ofPetitport were constantly coming 
to their maire for redress and advice. 

Fontaine used to do his best to dissuade them 
from going to law, but the neighbors were tena- 



cious of their riglits, and enjoyed nothing so 
much as a good lawsuit. Even old Nanon Le- 
febvre once insisted on spending her wretched 
earnings in summoning her cousin Leroi at 
Bayeux, who had unjustly grasped a sum of 
two pounds, she declared, to which she was en- 
titled. She lost her trial, and received back a 
few shillings from Fontaine's own pocket, with 
a lecture which she took in very ill part. She 
never would believe he had not made some se- 
cret profit by the transaction. 

The very first morning after her arrival, 
Catharine, who was outside upon the terrace, 
heard the stormy voices of some of Monsieur le 
Maire's clients coming shrill and excited from 
the kitchen, where Fontaine often administered 
justice. From the little embankment Catha- 
rine could see the sea and the village street de- 
scending, and the lavatoire, where the village 
women in their black stockings, and wliite coifiTs, 
and cotton nightcaps were congregated, scrub- 
bing, and flapping, and chattering topiether. 
The busy sounds came in gusts to Catharine in 
her garden, the fresh sea-breezes readied her 
scented by rose-trees. On fine days she could 
make out in the far distance the faint shimmer 
of the rocks of the Calvados out at sea, where 
the Spanish galleon struck. It struck and went 
down, and all on board perished, the legend 
runs, and the terrible rocks were called by its 
name for a warning. But nowadays all the' 
country round is christened Calvados, and the 
name is so common that it has lost its terror. 

Fontaine sometimes administered justice in 
the kitchen, sometimes in a little dark draughty 
office, where he kept odd pieces of string, some 
ink, some sealing-wax, and some car]ienter's 
tools. The chalet was more picturesque than 
comfortable as a habitation. Tlie winds came 
thundering against the thin walls, and through 
the chinks and crevices; the weathercocks would 
go twirling madly round and round, with a sound 
like distant drums. In the spring tides, Justine 
had said, the water would come up over the em- 
bankment and spread over tlie marguerite beds 
and the rose-trees, and the rain falling from the 
cliff would make pools in front of the dining- 
room door. The drawing-room was up stairs. 
It was a room of which the shutters were always 
dosed, the covers tied down tightly over the 
furniture, the table-cloths and rugs rolled up, 
and the ]iiano locked. The room was never 
used. When Monsieur Merard was there they 
were in the habit of sitting in his bedroom of an 
evening, Fontaine told his Avife. " C'est plus 
snog, comme vous dites," he said. Catharine * 
demurred at this, and begged to be allowed to j 

open the drawing-room, and make use of it and I 

of the piano. Fontaine agreed— to what would 1 

he not have agreed that she wished ?-^but it waiS 
evidently a pang to him, and he seemed afraid 
of what Madame Merard might say. 

The second day seemed a little longer to 
Catharine than the first at the chalet, and the 
third a little longer than the second. Not to 
Fontaine, who settled down to his accustomed 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



71 



I 



occupations, came, went, always taking care that 
Catharine should not be left for any time alone. 
Now and then, as days went on, she wished that 
she could be by herself a little more ; she was 
used to solitude, and this constant society and 
attention was a little fatiguing. All that was 
expected from her was, "Yes, mon ami," " Non, 
mon ami." At the end of a month it became 
just a little wearisome ; for, counting the fort- 
night at Rouen, Catharine had now been mar- 
ried a' month. Petitport had begun to put on 
its nightcap ; scarcely any one remained ; shut- 
ters were put up, and there was silence in the 
street. She walked up to the farm, but Heine 
had been away at Caen for some time, Domi- 
nique told her. One day was like another. 
Nobody came. Fontaine talked on, and Catha- 
rine almost looked forward to the arrival of 
Toto's grandparents to break the monotony. 

"Ce qui coute le plus pour plaire, c'est de 
cacher que Ton s'ennuie." Catharine had read 
tliis somewhere in a book of French maxims, 
and the words used to jangle in her ears long 
afterward, as words do. Sometimes she used to 
think of them involuntarily in those early days 
in the beginning of her married life, when she 
would be sitting by her own fireside alone with 
Fontaine. Monsieur le Maire was generally 
bolt upright on a stiff-backed chair by the table, 
delightedly contemplating the realization of his 
dreams ; while Madame Fontaine, on a low lit- 
tle seat by tlie fire, with her work falling upon 
her lap, was wondering, perhaps, whether this 
could be her own self and the end of all her 
vague ideals. The little gold ring upon her 
finger seemed to assure her it was so indeed. 
This was her home at last. There sat her hus- 
band, attentive, devoted, irreproachable, discur- 
sive — how discursive ! Conversatio i was Fon- 
taine's forte, his weakness, his passion, his ne- 
cessity. The most utterly uninteresting and 
unlikely subjects would suggest words to this 
fertile brain ; his talk was a wonder of ingenu- 
ity and unintermittingness. Now, for the first 
time for many years, he had secured a patient 
and a silent listener, and the torrent which had 
long been partially pent up had found a vent. 
Poor Fontaine was happy and in high spirits ; 
and, under the circumstances, could any repeti- 
tion, retrospection, interrogation, asseveration, 
be sufficient ? Must not every possible form of 
speech be employed to tell Catharine how sensi- 
ble he was to the happiness which had befallen 
him? "And you too are happy," he used to 
say, triumphantly ; and if his wife smiled grate- I 
fully, and answered "Yes," no one, I think, 
could blame her. i 

She was happy after a fashion. It was so 
strange to be wanted, to be loved and of import- 
ance, and looked for and welcomed. She found 
this as difficult to believe in as all the rest. 
Fontaine was always thinking of what would 
give her pleasure Her sisters were to come to 
her for their holidays always — whenever she 
liked, he said ; and Catharine's heart beat with 
delight at the thought of welcoming them to her 



1 own roof. The pretty room up stairs, looking 
down the street, should be theirs, she thought ; 
she would buy two little beds, some flower-pots 
for the window. Every day slie looked in on 
her way up and down, planning small prepara- 
tions for them, and one little scheme and anoth- 
er to please them. How hajjpy they would he ! 
Tills thought was almost perfect delight to her. 
She loved to picture them there, with their lit- 
tle beloved ugly heads. She took Toto into her 
confidence, and one day he came rushing in with 
a plaster statuette of Napoleon at St. Helena he 
had bought in the street. " C'est pour tes pe- 
tites soeurs," said he, and his stepmother caught 
! him in her arms and covered his round face with 
I kisses. Fimtaine happened to be passing by the 
I door at the moment. His double eyeglasses 
were quite dim, for his eyes had filled witli tears 
of happiness as he witnessed the little scene. 

" Je me trouve tout attendri!" said he, com- 
ing in. "Ah ! mon amie, you have made two 
people very happy by coming here. I am shed- 
ding tears of joy. They relieve the heart." 

It was a pathetic jumble. When Fontaine 
was unconscious he was affecting in his kindli- 
ness and tenderness of heart, and then the next 
moment he would by an afterthought become 
suddenly absurd. 

In the first excitement of his return Fontaine 
had forgotten many little harmless precisions 
and peculiarities which gradually revived as 
time went by. On the morning that Monsieur 
and Madame Me'rard were expected he appear- 
ed in a neat baize apron, dusting with a feather 
brush, arranging furniture, bustling in and out 
of the kitchen, and personally superintending 
all the preparations made to receive them. 

"Can't I do something?" Catharine timidly 
asked. 

"Va-t'en, mon enfant," said Fontaine, em- 
bracing her. " I am busy." 

Catharine knew it was silly, but she could 
not bear to see him so occupied. She took her 
work, went and sat in the dining-room window 
waiting, and as she sat there she thought of the 
day she had come with Madame de Tracy, a 
stranger, to the gate of her future home. 

Toto came running in at last to announce 
the arrival of his grandmother and grandfather. 
Fontaine took off his apron and rushed into the 
garden, and Catharine went and stood at the 
door to welcome them, a little shy, but glad, on 
the whole, to do her best to please her husband 
and his relations. 

Monsieur and Madame Me'rard were heavy 
people. They had to be carefully helped down 
from the little high carriage in which they had 
arrived by Justine and Fontaine, who together 
carried in their moderate boxes and packages. 
Although her trunk was small, Madame Me'rard 
was neatly and brilliantly dressed. Monsieur 
Merard, who was a very, very stout old gentle- 
man, wore slippers, a velvet cap, and short 
checked trowsers. He took off his coat imme- 
diately on arriving, as a matter of course, and 
sat down, breathless, in a chair near the window. 



72 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



" Venez, mon amie," said Fontaine, much 
excited, leading Catharine up by the liand. 
"Mon pere, ma mere" (the maire had a turn 
for oratory and situation), "I bring you a daugh- 
ter, " he said; " accord to her a portion of that af- 
fection you have for many years bestowed on me." 

A snuffy kiss from Madame Me'rard on her 
forehead, something between a sniff and a shake 
of the head, was the portion evidently reserved 
for Catharine. Monsieur Merard signed to her 
to advance, and also embraced her slowly, on 
account of his great size. After that they seem- 
ed to take no more notice of her, only every now 
and then Catharine felt the old lady's sharp eyes 
fixed upon her like the prick of two pins. 

"Eh bien, Justine," said Madame Me'rard, 
addi'essing the cuisiniere. "Has every thing 
been going on well ? You have taken good 
care of Monsieur and of Toto? What are you 
going to give us for our breakfast to-day?" 

"Monsieur is responsible for the breakfast," 
said Justine, irascible now that she was sure of 
an ally. "If he thinks it is possible for a cook 
to attend to her business when the masters are 
perpetually in and out of the kitchen, he is much 
mistaken." 

"You are right, ma fille," said Madame Me- 
rard, soothingly. "I have told him so a hund- 
red times. Eh bien, dites-moi ! Where have 
you been taking your butter since I left ?" 

"I have taken it from Madame Binaud, as 
madame desired," said Justine. 

" That is right," said Madame Merard ; "and 
yet there is no trusting any one. Imagine, 
Charles, that I have been paying thirty-eight 
sous a pound ! It was for good Isyngny butter, 
that is true, but thirty-eight sous ! Ah ! it is 
abominable. How much do you pay for butter 
in England, madame?" said the old lady, sud- 
denly turning round upon Catharine, and evi- 
dently expecting a direct answer to a plain ques- 
tion. 

"Half a cr — I don't know," said Catharine, 
looking to Fontaine to help her. Fontaine 
turned away much disappointed : he wanted his 
wife to shine, and he guessed the painful im- 
pression her ignorance would produce. 

"Ho! ho!" said old Me'rard, in a droll little 
squeaking voice, "Madame Me'rard must give 
you some lessons, my young lady." He was 
good-natui'edly trying to avert disagreeables. 

"Lessons!" said Madame Me'rard, hoarsely. 
" It is no longer the fashion for young women 
to interest themselves in the management of 
their domestic expenses. It is perhaps because 
they c(mtribute nothing to them." 

"Catharine felt very angry at this unpro- 
voked attack. She made an effort. "I shall 
be very glad to learn any thing you will teach 
me," she said. But already she was beginning 
to wonder whether she had not been wrong to 
wish for the tete-a-tete to be interrupted. If it 
is hard to seem amused when one is wearied, it 
is also difficult to conceal one's pain when one 
is wounded. They all sat down to breakfast. 
Monsieur Me'rard asked for a pin, and carefully 



fastened his napkin across his shirt-front. Ma- 
dame Me'rard freeh' used her knife to cut bread, 
to eat dainty morsels off her plate. Every thing 
went on pretty smoothly until Toto, who had 
been perfectly good for a whole fortnight, in- 
cited by the reajipearance of his grandparents, 
and perhaps excited by some wine the old lady 
had administered, became as one possessed. He 
put his hands ,into the dishes, helped himself in 
this fashion to a nice little sole he had taken a 
fancy to, beat the i-appel with his spoon upon 
the table-cloth, and held up his plate for more, 
so that the gravy dropped down upon Catha- 
rine's dress. She put her gentle hands upon his 
shoulder, and whispered gravely to him. This 
was a terrible offense. Madame Merard took 
snnff', and wiped both eyes and nose in her 
handkerchief, shaking her head. 

"Ah !" she said, "Charles, do you remember 
how patient his poor mother used to be with 
him ? She never reproved him^ — never." 

"I don't think poor Le'onie herself could be 
more gentle with her son than his stepmother 
is," Fontaine answered, with great courage, hold- 
ing out his hand to Catharine with a smile. 

But this scarcely made matters better. Cath- 
arine had found no favor in Madame Me'rard's 
little ferret eyes. She looked afraid of her for 
one thing, and there is nothing more provoking 
to people with difficult tempers and good hearts 
than to see others afraid. All day long Cath- 
arine did her best. She walked out a little 
way with the old couple ; she even took a hand 
at whist. They began at one and played till 
five. Then Monsieur le Cure' came in to see 
his old friend Madame Merard, and Catharine 
escaped into the garden to breathe a little air 
upon the terrace, and to try and forget the hu- 
miliations and weariness of the day. So this 
was the life she had deliberately chosen ; these 
were to be the companions with whom she M'as 
to journey henceforth. What an old menagere ! 
what economies ! what mustaches ! what fierce 
little eyes ! what a living tariff of prices ! A 
cool, delicious evening breeze came blowing 
through her rose-trees, consoling her somewhat, 
and a minute afterward Catharine saw her hus- 
band coming toward her. He looked beaming, 
as if he had just heard good news ; he waved his 
hand in the air, and sprung lightly forward to 
where she was standing. 

"All the morning I have not been without anx- 
iety ; I was afraid that something was wrong," 
he confided frankly to Catharine. "But now 
I am greatly relieved. My mother is telling 
Monsieur le Cure' that she and my stepfather 
fully intend to pass the winter with us." Cath- 
arine tried to say something, but could not suc- 
ceed—her husband noticed nothing. 

Fontaine, from the Very good-nature and af- 
fectionate fidelity of his disposition, seemed to 
cling very much to his early associates, and to 
the peculiar prejudices which he had learned 
from them. The odd ways were familiar to 
him, the talk did not seem strange. • It was of 
people and places he had known all bis life. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



73 



Their habits did not offend any very fine sense 
of taste. The translations which English minds 
make to themselves of foreign ways and customs 
are necessarily incorrect and prejudiced. Things 
which to Catharine seemed childish, partly hu- 
morous, partly wearisome, were to Fontaine only 
the simple and natural arrangements of every 
day. He could sit contentedly talking for hours 
in his cabane, with the little flag %ing from the 
roof. He could play away the bright long aft- 
ernoons with a greasy pack of cards or a box of 
dominoes. He could assume different costumes 
with perfect complacency — the sport costume, 
when he went to the shooting-gallery some en- 
terprising speculator had opened at Bayeux — 
the black gaiters pour affaire — the red flannel 
shirt for the sea -side stroll . . . Fontaine 
asked her one day if she would come down to 
the chateau with him. He had some business 
with the bailiff, who was to meet him there. 
Leaving the Mcrards installed upon the terrace, 
Catharine went for her hood and her cloak, and 
walked down the steep little ascent, and through 
the street, rm in arm with Monsieur le Maire. 
She had not been at the place since she left on 
/ the eve of her marriage. She began to think 
of it all ; she I'emembered her doubts, her de- 
spair. They came to the gates at last, where 
only a few weeks ago Dick had told her of his 
love for Reine ; the whole thing seemed running 
through her head like the unwinding of a skein. 
While Fontaine was talking to the bailiff she 
went and rang at the bell, and told Baptiste, 
who opened the door, that she wanted to go up 
to her room. 

" Mais certainement, madame ! Vous allez 
bien? Vous voyez il n'y a plus personne." 
Catharine crossed the hall and looked into the 
deserted drawing-room — how different it looked 
— how silent ! The voices and music had drifted 
elsewhere, and Catharine George, she no longer 
existed. Only a little smoke was left curling 
from the charred embers and relics of the past. 
Thinking thus, she went up to her own old little 
room, which was dismantled and looked quite 
empty, and as if it had belonged to a dead per- 
son. 

Catharine's heart was very full ; she looked 
round and about ; the sunset was streaming in 
through the curtainless window ; she heard tlie 
faint old sound of the sea ; she went to the little 
secre'taire presently, and opened one of the draw- 
ers and looked in. 

That last night when she had been packing 
her clothes, she had come upon one little relic 
which she had not had the heart to destroy. 
She had thrust it into a drawer in the bureau 
where she had already thrown some dead mar- 
guerites, and locked it in. No one finding it 
there would have been any the wiser. It was 
only a dead crumpled brown rose which Dick 
had picked up off the grass one day, but that 
had not prevented it from withering like other 
roses. It was still lying in the drawer among 
a handful of dry marguei-ites. Who would have 
guessed that the whole story of her life was 



written upon these withered stalks and leaves ? 
She felt as if the stoi'y and life all had belonged 
to some one else. She opened the drawer — no 
one else had been there. As she took up the 
rose a thorn pricked her finger. " Neither scent, 
nor color, nor smell, only a thorn left to prick," 
Catharine sadly sighed : " these other poor limp 
flowers at least have no thorns." So she thought. 
Tlicn she went and sat down upon the bed, and 
began to tell herself how good Fontaine had 
been to her, and to say to herself that it was too 
late now to wonder whether she had done right- 
ly or wrongly in marrying him. But, at least, 
she would try to be good, and contented, and 
not ungrateful. Perhaps, if she was very good, 
and patient, and contented, she might see Dick 
again some day, and be his friend and Reine's, 
and the thorn would be gone out of the dead rose. 
Fontaine's voice calling her name disturbed her 
resolutions. 

She found her husband waiting for her at the 
foot of the stairs. 

" Shall we revisit together the spot where we 
first read in each other's hearts," said he, senti- 
mentally, 

"Not this evening," said Catharine, gently. 
"I should like to go down to the sea before it 
grows quite dark." 

Every body had not left Petitport, for one or 
two families were still sitting in their little wood- 
en boxes along the edge of the sands, and a hum 
of conversation seemed sounding in the air with 
the monotonous wash of the sea. The ladies 
wore bright-colored hoods ; the waves were gray, 
fresh, and buoyant, rising in crisp crests against 
a faint yellow sky. A great line of soft clouds, 
curled and tossed by high currents of wind, was 
crossing the sea. One or two pale brown stars 
were coming out one by one, pulsating like little 
living hearts in the vast universe. Catharine 
I went down close to the water's edge, and then 
I threw something she held in her hand as far as 
she could throw. 

"What is that?" Fontaine asked, adjusting 
his eyeglass. 

" Only some dead flowers I found in a draw- 
er," said Catharine. 

" My dear child, why give yourself such need- 
less trouble?" asked the practical husband. 
" You might have left them where they were or 
in the court-yard, if you did not wish to litter 
the room, or ..." 

"It was a little piece of sentiment," said 
Catharine, humbly trying to make a confession. 
" Some one gave me a rose once in England, 
long ago, and ..." 

" Some one who — who — who loved you," Fon- 
taine interrupted, in a sudden fume, stammering 
and turning round upon her. 

"Oh no," Catharine answered; "you are 
the only person who has ever loved me." 

She said it so gently and sweetly that Fon- 
taine was touched beyond measure. And yet, 
though she spoke gently, his sudden anger had 
terrified her. She felt guilty that she could not 
bring herself to tell him more. She could not 



74 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



have made him understand her ; why disquiet I 
him witli stories of the past, and destroy his 
happiness and her own too? Alas! already 
this had come to her. 




->-x^^ 



CHAPTER XV. 

IN THE TWILIGHT AT LAMBSWOLD. 

It seemed that there were many thinjis of 
which Fontaine was unconscious. Catliarine 
never dared to trust him with the secret of Dick's 
engagement to Reine Chre'tien. This was too 
valuable a piece of gossip to be confided to the 
worthy maire's indiscretion. The country peo- 
ple talked a little ; but they were all used to 
Mademoiselle Chre'ticn's odd, independent ways, 
and after Dick had been gone some weeks they 
appeared for a time to trouble their heads no 
more about him. 

But Richard Butler reached home more than 
pver determined to make a clean breast of it, as 
the saying goes. Reine's good-by and last bright 
look seemed to give him courage. What would 
he not do for her sake ? 

Her knight in ancient times would have gone 
out valiantly, prepared to conquer dragons, fierce 
giants, monsters of land and sea. The only fierce 
dragon in Butler's way was the kind old man at 
Lambswold ; and yet, somehow, he thought he 
would rather encounter many dragons, poison- 
ous darts, fiery tails and all. But tlien he 
thought again of Reine standing in the sunset 
glory, in all her sweet nobility, and a gentle look 
came into Dick's own face. Women who have 
the rare gift of great beauty may well clierish it, 
and be grateful to Heaven. With the uncon- 
scious breath of a moment, they can utter all 
tliat is in them. They have said it at once, for- 



ever, while others are struggling for words, toil- 
ing with etlbrt, trying in vain to break the bonds 
which fetter them so cruelly. What sermon, 
what text, is like that of a tender heart, speak- 
ing silently in its own beauty and purity, and 
conscious only of the meaning of its own sincer- 
ity ? What words can speak so eloquently as 
the clear sweet eyes looking to all good, all love, 
all trust, encouraging with their tender smile ? 

Queen's Walk did not look so deserted as the 
other more fashionable parts of London. The 
dirty little children had not left town. The 
barges were sailing by ; the garden door was set 
wide open. The housekeeper let him in, smil- 
ing, in her best cap. Mr. Beamish was away, 
she told him, in Durham with his father, who 
was recovering, poor gentleman. There were a 
great many letters waiting on the 'all table, she 
said. Dick pulled a long face at the piles of 
cheap-looking envelopes directed very low down, 
with single initial-letters upon the seals. Mrs. 
Busby had cleaned down and rubbed up the old 
staircase to shining pitch. The studio, too, 
looked very clean, and cool, and comfortable. 
Every body was away. Mr. and IMrs. Hcrvey 
Butler were at Brighton, and Mr. Charles But- 
ler had not been up in town for some time ; Mr. 
Beamish had desired all his letters to be for- 
warded to Durham ; he was coming back as 
soon as he could leave his father. 

Every body knows the grateful, restful feeling 
of coming home after a holiday ; crowded ho- 
tels, fierce landladies' extortions, excursions, all 
disappear up the chimney ; every thing looks 
clean and comfortable ; the confusion of daily 
life is put to rights for a time, and one seems to 
start afresh. Airs. Busby had had the carpets 
beat, she said, and dinner would be quite ready 
at six. Dick, who was not sorry to have an ex- 
cuse to stay wliere lie was and to put off the an- 
nouncement he had in his mind, wrote a few 
words to Lambswold, saying that he would come 
down in a week or two, as soon as he Irad fin- 
ished a picture he had brought back with him 
from Tracy. 

For some weeks Dick worked very hard — 
harder than he IukI ever done in his life before. 
"I suppose the figures u]ion my canvas have 
come there somehow out of my brain," he wrote 
to Reine, "but they seem to have an odd, dis- 
tinct life of their own, so that I am sometimes 
almost frightened at my own performance." The 
picture he was painting was a melancholy one : 
a wash of brown transparent sea, a mist of gray- 
sky, and some black -looking figui'cs coming 
across the shingle, carrying a drowned man. A 
woman and a child were plodding dully along- 
side. It was unlike any of the pictures Butler 
had ever painted before. There was no attempt 
I at detail ; every thing was vague and undeterni- 
' ined ; but the waves came springing in, and it 
seemed as if there was a sunlight behind the 
! mist . . . Sometimes he fell into utter despond- 
' cncy over his work, plodding on at it as he did, 
day after day, with no one to speak to or en- 
' courage him ; but he struggled on, and at last 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



said to himself one day that, with all its faults 
and incompleteness, there was more true stuff in 
it than in any thing he had yet produced. 

One day Dick received a short note in his 
uncle Charles's careful handwriting: "When 
are you coming down here ?" the old man wrote. 
" I have not been well, or I should have been up 
to town. I suppose you could paint here as well 
as in your studio or under Matikla's auspices? 
but this place is dismal, and silent, and empty, 
and has no such attractions as those which, from 
all accounts, Tracy seems to hold out, so I shall 
not be surprised if I do not see you. Mundy 
takes very good care of me. If I really want 
you I will send for you. Yours, C. B." 

"What has he heard?" thought Dick, when 
he read the note. " Who can have told him 
any thing ? Is he vexed or only out of spirits ?" 
ButLr felt he must go, of course. It was tire- 
some, now that he was just getting into the swing, 
and doing the first piece of work which was worth 
tlie canvas upon which it was painted. As for 
taking his picture there, Dick was more afraid 
of his uncle's sarcastic little compliments than 
of any amount of criticism ; and, besides, there 
was no knowing what might be the result of their 
meeting. He would go down and pay him a 
visit, and tell him his story, and then, if he were 
not turned out forever, it would be time enough 
to see about transporting the canvas. 

Dick took his ticket in a somewhat injured 
frame of mind. All the way down in the rail- 
way carriage he was rehearsing the scene that 
was to take place ; he took a perverse pleasure 
in going over it again and again. Sometimes 
he turned himself out of doors, sometimes he 
conjured up Charles Butler's harsh little sar- 
castic laugh, sneering and disowning him. Once 
he saw himself a traitor abandoning Reine for 
the sake of the bribe ; but no, that was impossi- 
ble ; that was the only thing which could not 
happen. When he got to the station he had to 
hire the fly, as he was not expected, and to drive 
along the lanes. They were damp and rotting 
with leaves: gray mists came rolling along the 
furrows; a few belated birds were singing an 
autumnal song. 

" Tliey say the old gentleman's a-breaking up 
fast," said the flyman, cheerfully, as he dis- 
mounted at the foot of one of the muddy hills. 
" He's not an old man, by no means yet, but my 
missis she see him go by last Sunday for'night, 
and says she to me just so, 'Why,' says she, 
'old Mr. Butler ain't half the man he wer' in 
the spring-time.' " 

Dick could not help feeling uncomfortable ; 
he was not in the best of spirits ; the still, close 
afternoon, with the rotting vegetation all about, 
and the clouds bearing heavily down, predis- 
posed him to a gloomy view of things. They 
drove in at the well-known gates. 

"I hope I shall find my uncle better," he 
said, trying to speak hopefully as he got down 
at the hall door and ran up the old-fashioned 
steps. Mundy o]iened the door. 

"Oh, Mr. Eichard." he said, "I have just 



been writing to you. My master is very poor- 
ly, I am sorry to say — very poorly indeed." 

Old Mr. Butler was alone in the morning- 
room when his nephew came in. He had had 
a fire lighted, and he was sitting, wrapped in an 
old-fashioned palm dressing-gown, in a big chair 
drawn close up to the fender. The tall windows 
were unshuttered still, and a great cloud of mist 
was hanging like a veil over the landscape. 

"Well, my dear boy," said a strange yet fa- 
miliar voice, "I didn't expect you so soon." 

It was like some very old man speaking and 
holding out an eager, trembling hand. As old 
Butler spoke, he shut up and j)nt into his pocket 
a little old brown prayer-book in which he had 
been reading. Dick, who had been picturing 
imaginary pangs to himself all the way coming 
down, now found how different a real aching 
pain is to the visionary emotions we all inflict 
upon ourselves occasionally. It was with a real 
foreboding that he saw that some terrible change 
for the worse had come over the old man. His 
face was altered, his voice faint and sharp, and 
his hand was burning. 

"Why didn't you send for me, my dear Un- 
cle Charles? I never knew ... I only got 
your letter this morning. If I had thought for 
one instant . . ." 

"My note was written last week," said 
Charles. "I kept it back on purpose. You 
were hard at work, weren't you ?" Dick said 
nothing. He had got tight hold of the trem- 
bling, burning hand. "I'm very bad," said old 
Charles, looking up at the young fellow. "You 
won't have long to wait for my old slippers." 

"Don't, my dear, dear old boy," cried Dick. 

"Pah!" said old Butler; "your own turn 
will come sooner or later. You won't find it 
difficult to go. I think you won't," said the old 
broken man, patting Dick's hand gently. 

Dick was so shocked by the suddenness of the 
blow he was scarcely able to believe it. 

"Have you seen any one?" the young man 
asked. 

"I've seen Plickson, and this morning Dr. de 
M came down to me," Charles Butler an- 
swered, as if it was a matter of every-day occur- 
rence. " He says it's serious, so I told Mundy 
to write to you." 

Old Charles seemed quite cheerful and in 
good spirits ; he described his symjitoms, and 
seemed to like talking of what might be — he 
even made little jokes. 

"You ungrateful boy," he said, smiling, 
"there is many a young man who would be 
thankful for his good luck, instead of putting on 
a scared face like yours. W^ell, what have you 
been about?" 

It was horrible. Dick tried to answer and to 
speak as usual, but he turned sick once, and bit 
his lip, and looked away when his uncle, after a 
question or two, began telling him about some 
scheme he wanted carried out upon the estate. 

"Won't you send for Uncle Hervey," Dick 
said gravely, "or for my aunt?" 

"Time enough — time enough," the other an- 



76 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



swered. "They make such a talking. I want 
to put matters straight first. I've got Baxter 
coming here this afternoon." 

Mr. Baxter was the family attorney. Dick 
had for the minute forgotten all about what he 
had come intending to say. Now he looked in 
the fire, and suddenly told himself that if he had 
to tell his uncle what had been on his mind all 
these last months, the sooner it was done the 
better. But now, at such a crisis— it was an 
impossibility. 

So the two sat by the fire in the waning light 
of the short autumn day. The night was near 
at hand, Dick thought. There was a ring at 
the bell, and some one came in from the hall. 
It was not the lawyer, but Dr. Hickson again, 
and it seemed like a reprieve to the young man 
to have a few minutes longer to make up his 
mind. He followed the doctor out into the 
hall. His grave face was not reassuring. Dick 
could see it by the light of the old lattice-window. 

"Tell me honestly," he said, " what you think 
of my uncle's state. I never even heard he was 
ill till this morning." 

"My dear Mr. Richard," said Dr. Hickson, 

" we must hope for the best. Dr. de M 

agreed with me in considering the case very 
serious. I can not take upon myself to dis- 
guise this from you. Your uncle himself has 
but little idea of recovering ; his mind is as yet 
wonderfully clear and collected . . . and there 
may be little change for weeks, but I should ad- 
vise you to see that any arrangements . . . 
Dear me ! dear me !" 

The little overworked doctor hurried down 
the steps and rode away, all out of spirits, and 
leaving scant comfort behind him. He was 
thinking of all that there was to make life easy 
and prosperous in that big, well-ordered house, 
and of his own little struggling home, with his 
poor Polly and her six babies, who would have 
scarcely enough to put bread in their mouths if 
he were to be taken. He was thinking that- it 
was a lonely ending to a lonely life, with only 
interested people watchers, waiting by the old 
man's death-bed. Dr. Hickson scarcely did jus- 
tice to Dick, who had spoken in his usual quiet 
manner, who had made no professions, but who 
was pacing up and down the gravel sweep, back- 
ward and forward, and round and round, bare- 
headed, in tlie chill dark, not thinking of inher- 
itance or money, but only of the kind, forbearing 
benefactor to whom he owed so much, and to- 
ward whom he felt like a traitor in his heart. 

He went back into the morning-room, where 
Mundy had lighted some candles, and he forced 
himself to look hopeful, but he nearly broke 
down when Charles began saying in his faint, 
cheerful voice, "I've made a most unjust will. 
Baxter is bringing it for me to sign this evening. 
I have left almost every thing to a scapegrace 
nephew of mine, who will, I'm afraid, never 
make a fortune for himself. Shall I throw in 
the Gainsborough ?" he added, nodding at the 
lady who was smiling as usual out of her frame. 
"You will appreciate her some day." There 



was a moment's silence. Dick flushed up, and 
the veins of his temples began to throb, and a 
sort of cloud came before his eyes. He must 
speak. He could not let his uncle do this, 
when, if he knew all, he would for certain feel 
and act so differently. He tried to thank him, 
but the words were too hard to speak. He 
would have given much to keep silence, but he 
could. not somehow. Charles wondered at his 
agitation, and watched him moving uneasily. 
Suddenly he burst out. 

"Uncle Charles," said Dick at last, with a 
sort of choke for breath, " don't ask why ; leave 
me nothing — except — except the Gainsborough, 
if you will. I mustn't take your money ..." 

"What the devil do you mean?" said the 
old man, frightened^ and yet trying to laugh. 
" What have you been doing ?" 

" I've done no wrong," Dick said, looking up, 
with the truth in his honest eyes, and speaking 
very quick. " I don't want to bother you now. 
I want to do something you might not approve. 
I had come down to tell you, and I couldn't let 
you make your will without warning . . ." 

The young fellow had turned quite pale, but 
the horrible moment was past, the temptation to 
silence was overcome. In all Dick's life this 
was one of the hardest straits he ever encoun- 
tered. It was not the money ; covetousness 
was not one of liis faults, but he said to himself 
that he should have sacrificed faith, honor, any 
thing, every thing, sooner than have had the 
cruelty to inflict one pang at such a time. But 
the next instant something told him he had 
done right; he saw that a very gentle, tender 
look had come into the old man's eyes as he 
leant back in his chair. 

"I suppose you are going to get married," 
Charles said, faintly, "and that is the meaning 
of all this ? Well," he went on, recovering peev- 
ishly, "why the deuce don't you go on, sir?" 

This little return of the old manner made it 
easier for the young man to speak. "I've 
promised to marry a woman ; I love her, and 
that is my secret," he said, still speaking very 
quickly. "I'm not quite crazy; she is educa- 
ted and good, and very beautiful, but she is only 
a farmer's daughter at Tracy. Her mother was 
a lady, and her name is Heine Chre'ticn." 

Dick, having spoken, sat staring at the fire. 

"And — and you mean to establish that — this 
farmer's daughter here as soon as . . ." Charles, 
trembling very much, tried to get up from his 
chair, and sank down again. 

"You know I don't," said Dick, with a sad 
voice, "or I should not have told you." 

Then there was another silence. 

"I — I can't bear much agitation," Charles 
said at last, while a faint color came into his 
cheeks. "Let us talk of something else. Is 
the paper come yet? Ring the bell and ask." 

The paper had come, and Dick read out col- 
umn after column, scarcely attending to the 
meaning of one word before him. And yet all 
the strange every-day life rushing into the sick- 
room jarred horribly upon his nerves. Records 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



77 



of speeches, and meetings, and crime, and ad- 
vertisements — all tlie busy stir and roar of the 
world seemed stamped upon the great sheet be- 
fore him. His own love, and interest, and fu- 
ture seemed part of this unquiet tide of life, 
while the old man sat waiting in his big chair, 
away from it all ; and the fire burnt quietly, 
lighting up the room, and outside the wliite 
mist was lying upon the trees and the gardens. 

At last Dick saw, to his great relief, that his 
uncle had fallen asleep, and then he gently got 
up from his chair, and went and looked out at 
the twilight lawn. He thought of the picnic, 
and all the figures under the trees ; he could 
not face the present ; his mind turned and 
shifted, as people's minds do in the presence of 
great realities. 

"Dick!" cried the o\q\ man, waking anxious- 
ly, " are you thei'e ? Don't leave me. I shall 
be more comfortable in bed. Call Mundy and 
help me up." 

They had to carry him almost up the old- 
fashioned wooden flight. 

Richard Butler dined alone in the great dis- 
mal dining-room, and while he was at dinner 
Mundy told him the lawyer had come. "Mr. 
Butler desired me to open a bottle of his best 
claret for you, sir," said Mundy; "he wishes 
to see you again after dinner. Mr. Baxter is 
with him now." 

The lawyer had not left when Dick came into 
the room. He was tying red tape round long 
folded slips of paper and parchment. Old 
Charles was in his old-fashioned four-post bed, 
with the ancient chintz hangings, upon which 
wonderful patterns of dragons and phoenix's had 
been stamped. Dick had often wondered at these 
awful scrolled figures when he was a child ; he 
used to think they were horrible dreams which 
had got fixed upon the curtains somehow. 
Charles was sitting upright in the middle of it 
all ; he had shrunk away and looked very small. 

" I'm more comfortable up here," the old man 
said. " I've been talking to Mr. Baxter about 
this business of yours, Dick. It's lucky for you, 
sir, it didn't happen a year ago — isn't it, Baxter?" 

" Your uncle shows great trust in you, Mr. 
Butler," the attorney said. "There are not 
many like him who ..." 

" You see, Dick, one thing now is very much 
the same as another to me," interrupted the 
master of Lambswold. ' ' It seems a risk to run, 
but that is your look-out, as you say, and I 
should have known notliing about it if you had 
not told me. If in another year's time you have 
not changed your mind . . . Mr. Baxter has 
provided, as you will find. I have experienced 
a great many blessings in my life," he said, in 
an altered tone — " a very great many. I don't 
think I have been as thankful as I might have 
been for them, and — and — . I sliould like' you, 
too, to have some one you care for by your bed- 
side when Lambswold changes masters again," 
Charles Butler said, holding out his kind old 
hand once more. "I was very fond of your 
mother, Dick." 



Dick's answer was very incoherent, but his 
uncle understood him. Only the old man felt 
a doubt as to the young man's stability of pur- 
pose, and once more spoke of the twelve months 
which he desired should elapse before the mar- 
riage was publicly announced ; he asked him to 
say nothing for the present. He owned with a 
faint smile that he did not want discussion. 

Of course Dick promised ; and tlien he wrote 
to Reine, and told her of the condition, and of 
the kind old uncle's consent. 

Twelve months seemed but a very little while 
to Dick, faithful .and busy with a prosperous 
lifetime opening before him. As days went on 
his uncle rallied a little ; but he knew that this 
improvement could not continue, and of course 
he was not able to get away. He often wrote 
to Reine, and in a few simple words he would 
tell her of his gratitude to his uncle, and of his 
happiness in the thought of sharing his future, 
whatever it might be, with her. " Altliough 
heaven knows," he said, "how sincerelj' I pray 
that this succession may be put off for years ; 
for you, my Reine, do not care for these things, 
and will take me, I think, without a farthing." 

But a year to Reine was a long, weary time 
of suspense to look forward to. She found the 
strain very great ; the doubts, which returned 
for all her eff"orts against them, the terror of 
what might be in store. She loved Dick as she 
liated his surroundings, and sometimes she al- 
most feai-ed tliat her love was not worthy of his, 
and sometimes the foolish, impatient woman 
would cry out to herself that it was he who 
wanted to be set free. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MUSIC HATH CHARMS. 

It had required all Fontaine's persuasion, 
backed by the prestige of his municipal au- 
thority, to persuade Justine to open the draw- 
ing-room shutters, and to allow Catharine to use 
that long -abandoned territory. With many 
mumbles, and grumblings, and rumblings of 
furniture, the innovation had been achieved a 
few days before Madame Me'rard's return ; Mon- 
sieur Fontaine himself assisting in most of the 
work, or it never would have been accomplished. 
He was not the man to do things by halves. 
Catharine wished for a drawing-room and a 
piano ; poor Leonie's instrument was standing 
there, it is true, but cracked and jarred, and with 
a faded front. Soon a piece of bright new red 
silk rejilaced the sickly green, the rosewood 
complexion was polished to a brilliant brown by 
the indefatigable master of the house ; he would 
have tuned it if he could, but this was beyond 
Ills powers, and the organist was mysteriously 
brought in by a back door, while Toto was* de- 
sired to detain Catharine on the terrace until a 
preconcerted signal should announce that all 
was ready for her to be l)rought in, in triumph. 
Monsieur le Maire was delighted. He led her 



78 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



SrpeC r.";::!' •■ £X;i.,f "oo.ed ! .ove.e„., of C..h.,i„e. .e„ae liule finders 




up with her dark grateful eyes, and began to 
play as she was bid. 

Monsieur Fontaine contented himself at hrst 
by beating time to his wife's performance with 
g^eat spirit and accuracy; but one evening, 
somewhat to her dismay, he produced a cornet. 



with sudden sounds, somewhat uncertain per- 
haps, but often very loud. Justine sulkily called 
it a " vacarme" as she banged the kitchen door. 
Passers-by, driving their cows or plodding home 
with their fish-baskets, stopped outside, aston- 
ished, to ask what it could be. The old cider- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



dibbers at Pelottier's could hear the rich notes 
when the wind blew in that direction. Poor 
Madame Fontaine herself burst out laughing, 
and put her hands up to her ears the first time 
she heard her husband's music ; but Monsieur 
le Maire instantly stopped short, and looked so 
pained and disappointed that she begged him to 
go on, and immediately began to play again. 
Only she took care afterward to select the calm- 
est, and the most pastoral and least impassioned 
music in her repertory. When she came to 
passages marked con expressione or with arpeg- 
gios^ or when she saw_/yy 's looming appallingly 
in the distance, she would set her teeth and 
brace up her courage for the onslaught. By de- 
grees, however, Fontaine's first ardor toned 
down, or Catharine's nerves grew stronger. 
Toto thought it great fun, only he wished they 
would play polkas and waltzes, as he stood lean- 
ing against the piano with his round eyes fixed 
upon Catharine's face. People almost always 
look their best when they are making music ; 
how often one sees quite plain and uninterest- 
ing faces kindle with sweet sound into an un- 
conscious harmony of expression. Catharine 
was no great performer, but she played with feel- 
ing and precision. There always was a charm 
about her, which it would be difficult to define, 
and now especially, with her dark head bent a 
little forward to where the light fell upon her 
music-book, she would have made a lovely little 
study — for Dick Butler, let us say. ' ' A Woman 
set to Music" it might have been called ; she 
felt nothing but a harmony of sound at such a 
time, except, indeed, when the cornet burst in 
with a wrong note. Monsieur Fontaine, be- 
tween the intervals of his own performance, 
liked to look at her proudly and admiringly. 
Any stranger coming in would have tliought it 
a pretty picture of a happy family group, and 
carried away the pleasant image. 

Justine was not so easily taken in. Having 
banged her door, she would shrug her shoulders 
down in her kitchen below ; she could bide her 
time. Madame Me'rard was coming. She was 
not fond of music any more than Justine. 

Fontaine felt as if some guilty secret was 
buried in his bosom, when, for the first two 
nights after the old peo])le's arrival, he tried to 
make excuses for remaining down stairs in the 
dining-room, and was glad that Catharine re- 
tired early with a headaclie. Justine said noth- 
ing. She left every body to make their own 
discoveries. These would not be long about, she 
knew : for Madame Me'rard's fierce little eyes 
went poking here and there with a leisurely yet 
unceasing scrutiny. 

It was Madame Merard who had educated 
Justine, placed her in Fontaine's kitchen, and 
desired her to remain there ; and the invaluable 
servant had accordingly, for years past, done her 
best to make his life miserable, his soup and his 
coffee clear, strong, and well-flavored. She did 
many other things — washed, scrubbed, marketed, 
waited at table, put Toto to bed — no easy mat- 
ter. She would go about with the air of a sulky 



martyr, working miracles against her will. 
Madame de Tracy, with all her household, was 
not so well served as Fontaine, with this terrible 
ewe-lamb of his. 

Madame Me'rard was the only person who 
ventured to drive this alarming creature; but 
then, to judge from the old lady's conversation, 
she seemed gifted with a sort of second sight. 
She could see through cupboard doors into the 
inside of barrels ; she could overhear conversa- 
tions five miles off, or the day after to-morrow. 
Madame Nicholas must have been nearly de- 
mented when she tried to palm off her Tues- 
day's eggs upon her last Friday. Justine herself 
never attempted to impose upon this mistress- 
mind, and would take from her, in plain lan- 
guage, what the maire, with all his official dig- 
nity, would never have ventured to hint. 

At Madame Me'rard's own suggestion and Jus- 
tine's, a girl from the village had been lately 
added on to the establishment. A girl? a suc- 
cession of girls rather. They would come up 
in their Sunday clothes, smiling and cheerful, 
bobbing courtesies to the Me'rards, to Toto, to 
Monsieur, to Madame, to the all-powerful Jus- 
tine, anxious for employment, and willing to do 
tlieir best. And then they would immediately 
begin to perish away, little by little : smiles 
would fade, the color go out of their cheeks, and 
one day, at last, they would disappear, and never 
be heard of any more. Justine the Terrible had 
claws, and a long tongue, and a heavy hand : 
she did not drive them over the cliff, but she 
sent them home in tears to tlieir mothers. Fon- 
taine used to try to interfere in the behalf of 
these victims, but it was in vain. Catharine 
made a desperate sally once into the kitchen ; 
she was routed ignominiously by Madame Me'- 
rard, who would be superintending the punish- 
ment. 

"Why don't you send Justine away?" Cath- 
arine said to lier husband one morning after one 
of these scenes. 

" My dear, you do not think of what you are 
saying ! It is not from you, my dear Catharine, 
that I should have expected such a proposition." 
And Fontaine, who had interrupted his hammer- 
ing for an instant, sliocked at the bold proposal, 
resumed his occupation. 

]\Iadame Merard had observed one or two 
motes calling for remark in the last arrival's 
goggle blue eyes, and she went stumping down 
stairs early one morning for a little consultation 
in the kitchen before breakfast. The old lady, 
in her morning costume, and short jacket or 
camisole, and stiff starched cap, and slijipers, 
managed to look quite as formidable as she did 
later in the day. Her mustaches seemed to curl 
more fiercely, unrelieved by the contrast of a 
varied and brilliant toilette ; her little, even 
white teeth, with which she could crack a whole 
plateful of nuts, seemed to gleam beneath the 
mustaches. Madame Me'rard was surprised to 
see that the drawing-room door was open as she 
passed ; still more aghast was she when she 
looked in and perceived the shutters unclosed. 



80 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



the little bits of rug spread out here and there 
upon the floor, the furniture standing on its legs 
instead of being piled up in a heap, the piano 
dragged out from its dark recess in a convenient 
angle for playing. . . . What was the meaning 
of all this ? What madness did it denote ? 
Were they going to give an evening party? 
Had they given one without her knowledge ? 
The old lady trotted up to the piano — her own 
daughter's piano — magnificently done up, with 
music piled upon the top ! She looked round 
and saw a window open, a cup with flowers in 
the window, and a work-basket and writing ma- 
terials ujion the table. . . . The light began to 
dawn ujjon her. What ! did they make a com- 
mon sitting-room of Le'onie's state drawing- 
room, which was never made use of in her life- 
time except on the occasion of Toto's christen- 
ing, and once when a ball was given which 
Madame Me'rard herself had opened? Oh, it 
could not be ; it was impossible ! But as she 
was still staring, bewildered, the door opened, 
and Catharine came in, looking quite at home, 
bringing some more leaves and berries from her 
winter-garden, and looking as if she was quite 
used to the place, and sat in it every hour of 
the day. 

"Good-morning," said Madame Fontaine, in 
her gentle, cheerful way, unconscious of the 
sword hanging over her head. "I think break- 
fast is on the table." 

"Indeed!" said Madame Me'rard. "I am 
looking in surprise, madame. I was not aware 
of the changes which had taken place during 
my absence." 

" Monsieur Fontaine was kind enough to get 
the piano tuned for me," said Catharine, "and 
I asked him to let me use this room. It has 
such a pleasant look-out." And still provok- 
ingly unconcerned she put her leaves into the 
flower-cup, and began putting her writing things 
together. 

"And you are not afraid, madame, of the 
damage which may befall this handsome furni- 
ture, for which my daughter paid so large a 
sum?" cried the old lady, in a voice of sup- 
pressed tluinder. " She took care of it, but 
you, no doubt, not having contributed any thing, 
can afford ..." 

Catharine looked up frightened, and was 
shocked by the angry gleam she encountered ; 
Madame Me'rard looked stiff with indignation. 

" You have, without doubt, madame, engaged 
servants in abundance to attend to your various 
wants?" she went on quivering. "We quiet 
people must seem to you very contemptible as 
you sit in your elegant drawing-room. Pray, 
do you intend to receive your fine friends here, 
in the apartment upon which my poor Leonie 
bestowed so much care and expense ? Ah ! 
there are only English capable of such baseness." 

Madame Merard stopped, much satisfied, for 
Catharine had turned pale, and tlien looking 
round, and seeing Fontaine standing in the 
doorway, the silly little thing ran up to him and 
burst out crying. 



" Poor child !" he said, very tenderly. ' ' Go, 
go. I will explain to my good mother ; she 
does not understand ; perhaps a little cau su- 
cree . . . Try it, inon amie. We will follow im- 
mediately." 

This was the first encounter between these 
very unequal opponents. Fontaine was so hum- 
ble and aft'ectionate that he presently brought 
the old lady down to breakfast almost mollified. 
She was really fond of him, and when he made 
a personal request, and talked of the rest after 
his mental occupations, the diversion and repose 
the pursuit of music gave him, she reluctantly 
consented, with a pinch of snuflT, to the innova- 
tion. It was not the only one. 

At one time Madame Merard suddenly be- 
came quite affectionate in her manners. This 
was soon after her arrival, when M. le Cure was 
a great deal at the house. He also treated 
Catharine with great kindness, and called her 
nio?i enfant. Old Me'rard would dispose himself 
for sleep during these visits, and Monsieur le 
Cm-e' and Madame Me'rard would enter into 
long and pointed conversations upon the subject 
of their common faith. Monsieur le Cure' would 
produce little brown books from his ample pock- 
ets, with the pictures of bishops, and fathers and 
mothers, and agonizing saints upon their narrow 
pallets; and from one sign and another Ma- 
dame Fontaine guessed that the time had come 
when it was considered fitting for her to prepare 
to go over to the religion of the strangers among 
whom slie lived. She would look at the two 
sitting in the window, Madame Me'rard taking 
snufif as she listened, the cure, with his long 
brown nose, and all the little buttons down his 
shabby frock, and his heavy black legs crossed, 
and his tliick fingers distended as he talked. 
The Abbe Verdier was a gentleman, and once 
Catharine might have been willing to be gently 
converted by him to a faith which had at all 
times a great attraction for this little heretic ; 
but now to be dragged over by main force, by 
the muscular cure', to the religion of Madame 
Merard — never, never. Fontaine used to look 
in sometimes, and retire immediately on tiptoe 
when the cure' was there. The maire had prom- 
ised before his marriage not to interfere with 
his wife's religi,ous opinions ; but, all the same, 
he did not wish to disturb the good work by any 
inopportune creaking noises. When Cathai'ine 
was younger, before she had gone through a 
certain experience wliich comes to most people, 
her conversion might have been possible, and 
even likely ; but now it was too late. From 
inner causes working silently, and from outer 
adverse influence, a change had come over her; 
she could no longer accept new beliefs and 
creeds, and vivid emotions which she could not 
even realize, they seemed so distant. She could . 

only cling with a loving persistence to the things 1 

of the past, which wei-e still her own and part f 

of her own old life. 

Tlie cure' was a clever man, although bigot- 
ed, and unlike the abbe' in his gentle charity and 
sympatliy even for heretics ; after a time hs ^ 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



81 



ceased importuning, and only snubbed Madame 
Fontaine ; Madame Me'raid scowled afresh ; 
Justine, who had also temporarily suspended 
liostilities, banged her door in disgust, and took 
care for many weeks to iron Madame Fontaine's 
fine things all crooked and on the wrong side. 
Monsieur le Maire was grievously disappointed, 
but he said nothing, and only seemed, if possi- 
ble, more tender, more gentle and anxious to 
make his wife happy. 

It was on this occasion that Madame Me'rard 
was at least relieved from another special grief 
which she cherished against Catharine. One 
Protestant impoverished Englishwoman in the 
family was bad enough ; but the contemplated 
arrival of two more at Christmas, their admis- 
sion into the chalet built with Leonie's money, 
furnished with her taste — oh, it was not to be 
endured. The very thought had to be chased 
away with much snuff, and many wavings of 
the big checked handkerchief. The poor little 
girls, however, escaped the exorcisings to which 
they would doubtless have been subject if they 
had arrived, for Lady Farebrother, taking alarm 
at some chance expressions in Catharine's let- 
ters, wrote in her flowing capitals to tell her 
that she felt she would not be justified in ex- 
}X)sing Rosa and Totty to the insidious and 
poisoned influences of Jesuitism, and that, act- 
ing upon Mr. Bland's suggestion, she had de- 
termined to make other arrangements for the 
children during the holidays. And poor Cath- 
arine's eyes filled up with bitter tears as she 
read the heart-broken little scrawls inclosed in 
her aunt's more elaborate epistle. And yet 
she could scarcely have borne to see them un- 
kindly treated. For herself she did not care. 
She looked upon it as an expiation in some 
sort. Often and often she felt ashamed and 
guilty as she caught the maire's kind and ad- 
miring glance. So much affection and devo- 
tion deserved some better return than the grate- 
ful toleration which was all she had to give. A 
little patience, a few small services — this was all 
she could pay toward that vast debt she owed 
him. As she began to love her husband a lit- 
tle, she found out how little it was. She ought 
never to have married him. She knew it now, 
although at the time, in her agitation and ex- 
citement, she had fancied that she could at will 
forget where she w^ould, love where she should ; 
and that, by flinging away a poor faded rose, 
she could cast from her all memory of the time 
when it was sweet and red. Alas ! the wrong 
was done, and could not be undone. She could 
only do her best now, and repair as much as it 
lay in her power, by patient effort, the harm 
one moment's weakness had brought about. 

Catharine's gentleness maddened the old lady, 
who was afraid her victim would escape her by 
sheer obedience and sweetness. Why didn't 
she laugh and make jokes ? Why didn't she 
get angry ? Why was she so indifferent ? Even 
when she gained four tricks running the night 
before, she did not seem to care. The elegant 
veil Fontaine presented to her might have been 
F 



imitation for all the pains she took, wearing it 
out in the garden, with no one to see. If Cath- 
arine had only scolded, and worried, and com- 
plained of migraine, and lived with her husband 
in a way Madame Me'rard could understand, she 
might in time have got to like her, but all this 
good temper was insupportable. 

The time passed on. The people at Petit- 
port heard but little from without. The Tracys 
were still at Paris; Charles Butler lingered 
still, although the poison in his system had al- 
ready attacked some vital organ. It was a long 
sad watch for Dick. In the beginning of the 
winter, at Charles Butler's own request, Catha- 
rine Butler had been married quite quietly to 
Beamish. The news of the marriage came 
across the sea to Catharine Fontaine, but it all 
seemed very distant and hard to realize. 

As the winter went on the people in the cot- 
tages lit larger fires in the deep chimneys, and 
liuddled round the blaze. The winds seemed 
to shake the very foundations of the wooden 
house, and the maire anxiously inspected his 
embankment against the expected onslaught of 
the early spring-tides. Outside the chalet there 
was cold, and drift, and storm, and low mists 
came rolling over the fields and along the edges 
of the cliffs ; inside, fires of wood and charcoal 
were burning, stew-pots simmering on the hob, 
and the daily pendulum of life swung on mo- 
notonously. Old Merard's taper burnt with a 
quiet flicker as he warmed himself in his chim- 
ney corner. Madame Me'rard's light blazed, 
and hissed, and spluttered ; it was not set under 
a bushel ; nor was Justine's, as she sat below 
darning away the long winter evenings, while 
Fontaine busily rapped, tapped, conversed, prac- 
ticed his cornet, settled his accounts, came and 
went, cheerfully humming little snatches from 
operas, or with alacrity joined the inevitable 
pariie. That horrible, greasy pack of cards 
which was brought out every afternoon inspired 
poor Catharine with a morbid feeling of disgust 
that would have been absurd if she had not 
struggled so hard against it. When they all 
noisily insisted that she must join them, she 
would put down her book in silence and come 
to the table. No one noticed the weary look in 
her dark eyes, or would have understood it any 
more than did the knaves of clubs and spades, 
with the thumb-marks across their legs, staring 
at her with their goggle eyes. Sometimes, 
thinking of other things as the hours went on, 
she would forget and hold the cards so loosely 
that old Merard, in his odd little piping voice, 
would cry out, "Take care! take care! What 
are you about?" and then Catharine would 
start and blush, and try to be more careful. 
Little Madame Fontaine's lamp, although she 
was somewhat dazzled by the light as she tried, 
with a trembling, unaccustomed hand, to trim 
the wick, was burning more briglitly now per- 
haps than it had ever done in all her life before ; 
and yet she might have told you (only that she 
found it difficult to speak) she had never thought 
so hardly of herself, never felt so ashamed, so 



82 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



sorry for all that she had done amiss. Fon- 
taine must have sometimes had a dim suspicion 
that his wife was tired, as she drooped over the 
cards, for he would send her to the piano while 
he dealt the cards to the elders, and to himself, 
and the dummy that replaced her, to the sound 
of Catharine's music. The shabby kings and 
queens, performing their nightly dance, circled 
round and round, and in and out, in the coun- 
try dance which mortals call whist, and kept 
unconscious time to the measure. The lamp 
would spread its green light, the blue flames of 
the wood fire would sparkle and crackle, old 
Me'rard, in his velvet cap with the long hanging 
tassel, would unconsciously whistle a little ac- 
companiment to the music as he pondered over 
his trumps, and Fontaine would beat time with 
his foot under the table ; as for Madame Me'- 
rard, erect and preoccupied, she avoided as 
much as possible listening to the sounds which 
distracted her, for the flick of her cards falling 
npon the table was the music she loved best to 
hear. 

One night Madame Fontaine suddenly ceased 
])laying, and went and looked out through the 
unshuttered window. Ilandfuls of stars were 
scattered in the sky. There was the sound of 
the distant sea washing against the bastions of 
the terrace. The moon had not yet risen ; the 
narrow garden-paths glimmered in the darkness; 
except where two long rays of light from the 
window lit up every pebble and blade of grass, 
elsewhere shadows were heaping, and the great 
cliff rose black purple before the sky. Catha- 
rine, looking out, saw some one coming through 
the gloom, and stop at the gate and open it, and 
she recognized Reine by the quick movement. 

"Knave of trumps," said Madame Me'rard, 
triumphantly, as Madame Fontaine stepped 
gently out of the room, and went out to meet 
her friend. The two women stood in the door- 
way talking in low tones, which seemed to suit 
the silence ; they could scarcely see eacli other's 
faces, only Reine's white flaps streamed in the 
shadow ; her voice shook a little as she spoke, 
and her hand was trembling in Catharine's soft, 
warm fingers. Poor Reine, she had come to 
Catharine in a sad and troubled mood. She 
had received a sad, hurried word from Dick to 
tell her all was over at last ; that there was con- 
fusion and stir now in the house of which he 
was virtually the master. Mr. Ba.xter had un- 
tied his red tapes, and read the will by which it 
was left to him. Dick was not to take actual 
possession for a year, during which the income 
was to be apjilied to keeping up the estate as 
usual, and to succession expenses. Only a small 
sum was apportioned to Dick himself until he 
came into the property. And for the present 
their engagement was still to be secret. And 
poor Reine, in her perplexity, had written back 
to offer to set him free. "He ought to marry 
a great lady now," she said. It was not fitting 
that she should be his wife. His prospect of 
succession gave her no pleasure; on the con- 
trary, it seemed to put them more widely asun- | 



der. A great house ! she liked her brick-floored 
room better than any splendid apartment in a 
palace. Her cotton curtains and quilt, with the 
stamped blue ])ictures from the life of Joan of 
Arc, were more familiar to her than down, and 
damask, and quilting. Better than any carpet- 
ed flight to her was the old stone staircase lead- 
ing to her bedroom, built without shelter against 
the outside wall of the house ; she went up to 
bed in the rain, sometimes with the roar of the 
sea booming on the wind from a distance ; some- 
times she sat down on the steps on still nights 
when the stars were shining over the horizon, 
and thought of Richard Butler, and looked, and 
wondered, and felt at peace. But in the day- 
light she was unquiet and restless; she came 
and went, and worked harder than ever before 
Petitpere remonstrated with her and told her she 
could afford to spare herself. He did not know- 
how things were going, but he had a shrewd 
suspicion. Reine said no, she could not spare 
herself; she must go on working for the pres- 
ent. And now she came half crying to Catha- 
rine. "I hate the secrecy," she said; "it is 
not fair upon ine. If I were one of them they 
would not treat me so." 

Only yesterday Madame Pe'lottier had spoken 
to her in a way she could not misunderstand 
about people who set their caps so high that 
they tumbled off; some one else had laughed, 
and asked her what she thought of Mr. Butler's 
great fortune ; Petitpere, too, who so rarely in- 
terfered, had rubbed his old chin, and told her 
that he heard from Barbeau, Monsieur Rich- 
ard's visits at the farm had been remarked upon. 
Petitpere warned Reine to be careful if she saw 
him again — people might chatter. 

"It is my giandfather himself and Pere Bar- 
beau who chatter," said Reine. " They do not 
know what harm they do me. This morning 
only I met M. de Tracy and his wife. Did you 
not know they were come back ? Catharine, 
they looked at me so strangely." 

Catharine laughed. "Dear Reine, you fan- 
cy things." 

" I am ridiculous, and I know it — ridiculous 
as well as unhappy. Oh, if he loved me he 
would not make me so unhappy." 

Catharine felt a little frightened when she 
heard Reine say this. As a little drift upon 
the darkness, she seemed to see her own story — 
that poor little humble, hopeless love flitting be- 
fore her; and then she thouglit of Dick, kind, 
and gay, and loyal, and unsuspecting : of his 
fidelity there was no doubt. 

" Ah ! Reine," she said, almost involuntarily, 
"he is too kind to do any thing willingly to 
make you unhappy. I sometimes think," she 
said, speaking quickly, and frightened at her 
own temerity, " that you scarcely know what a 
prize you have gained. Mr. Butler makes no 
professions, but he is true as steel ; he never 
speaks a harsh word, nor thinks an ungenerous 
thought." How could he help this promise if 
his dying uncle asked for it? "It seems so 
hard," she went on, with suppressed emotion. 



i 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



" to see those who have for their very own the 
things others would have once given their whole 
lives to possess, doubting, unhappy ..." 

She stopped short : there was a sound, a win- 
dow opening overhead, and Fontaine's voice 
cried out, " Catharine ! where are you ? impru- 
dent child." 

Catharine only answered quickly, "Yes, mon 
ami, I am coming . . ." Long afterward she 
used to hear the voice calling, although some- 
times at the moment she scarcely heeded it. 
" Reine, you are not angry," she said. 

"Angry! no, indeed," said Reine, her soft, 
pathetic tones thrilling through the darkness. 
"One other thing I came to tell you. I shall 
go into retreat on Wednesday. Will you go 
up and visit Petitpere one day during my ab- 
sence ?" 

"Oh, Reine, are you really going," said Cath- 
arine, to whom it seemed a terrible determin- 
ation. 

Reine thought little of it. She had been be- 
fore with her mother to the convent of the Au- 
gustines at Caen. Impatient, sick at heart, 
vexed with herself, the gii'l longed for a few 
days of rest and prayer in a place where the 
rumors and anxieties of the world would only 
reach her as if from a far distance. In Reine 
Chre'tien's class the proceeding is not common, 
but grand ladies not iinfrequently escape in this 
fashion fiom the toil and penalty of the world. 
Madame Jean de Tracy herself had once retired 
for a few days, without much result. The nuns 
put up a muslin toilet-table in her cell, and made 
her welcome, but she left sooner than had been 
expected. The air disagreed with her, she said. 

Marthe was now in this very convent com- 
mencing her novitiate. She had entered soon 
after Catharine's marriage. Jean, who had seen 
her, said she was looking well, and more beau- 
tiful than ever. The air did not disagree with 
her. Before long, Madame de Tracy and Ma- 
dame Mere returned to the chateau, with Barbe 
and all the servants in deep mourning : the last 
sad news had reached them at Paris of Charles 
Butler's death. Madame de Tracy bustled down 
to see Catharine in her new home ; she was very 
kind, and cried a good deal when she spoke of 
her brother, and asked many questions, and em- 
braced Catharine very often. She did not pay 
a long visit, and having fluttered off and on her 
many wraps, departed, desiring madame to be 
sure to come constantly to see her. Catharine 
was glad to go ; it made a break iu the monotony 
of her life. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



All the autumn blaze of dahlias and margue- 
rites in front of the little chalet had been put 
out by the wintry rains and winds ; only the 
shutters looked as brilliantly green as ever, and 
the little weathercocks were twirling cheerfully 



upon the tall iron spikes, when Dick came walk- 
ing up to the chalet one February morning about 
twelve o'clock. He rang the bell. Madame 
Me'rard saw him through the dining-room win- 
dow, and called to Justine to let the gentleman 
in. 

"Monsieur was not at home," Justine said. 
" Madame Fontaine was on the terrace. Would 
he like to see Madame Me'rard?" 

Dick hastily replied that he would try and 
find Madame Fontaine, and he strode off in the 
direction Justine indicated. 

"You can not lose your way," she said, as 
she went hack to her kitchen, well pleased to 
escape so easily, and the dining-room door open- 
ed to invite the gentleman in just as he had dis- 
appeared round the corner of the house. 

As Dick went walking down the little slopes 
which led from terrace to terrace, he took in at 
a glance the look of Catharine's life and the 
sound of it, the many-voiced sea with its flash- 
ing lights, the distant village on the jutting prom- 
ontory, Petitport close at hand with its cheerful 
sounds, its market-place and echoes, the ham- 
mer of the forge, the dogs barking on the cliff, 
the distant crow of cocks. The sun was shin- 
ing in his eyes, so that it was Toto who saw 
Dick first, and came running up hastily from the 
cabane, calling to his step-mother. Then Cath.a- 
rine appeared with a glow upon her cheeks, for 
the morning air was fresh and delightful. 

The two met very quietly. A gentleman in 
mourning took off his hat, a lady in a scarlet 
hood came up and held out her hand. As she 
did so Catharine thought she was holding out 
her hand across a great gulf. Heaven had been 
merciful to her, and she was safe, standing on 
the other side. Now that she saw him again 
she knew that she was safe. This was the mo- 
ment she had secretly dreaded and trembled to 
contemplate, and it was not very terrible after 
all. 

"lam sorry my husband is out," said Catha- 
rine, after she had asked him when he had come, 
and heard that the Beamishes had crossed with 
him the day before and wanted to see her again. 
We all talk a sort of algebra now and then, as 
Catharine talked just now. The history of the 
past, the faith of the future, the pain, the hope, 
the efforts of her poor little life, its tremulous 
unknown quantities, were all expressed in these 
few common platitudes — " How do you do ? I 
am glad to see you. My husband is not at home." 

To all of which, indeed, Dick paid but little 
heed, though he returned suitable answers. He 
was sorry to miss Fontaine, and yet he was glad 
to find her alone, he said. Something had 
vexed him, and, like Reine, he had come to 
Catharine for sympathy and advice, only before 
he began upon his own concerns he looked at 
her. Now that the flush had faded he saw that 
Madame Fontaine was a little thin and worn ; 
her eyes were bright as ever, but there was a 
touching tired look under the dropping eyelids 
which made him fear all was not well. And yet 
her manner was very sweet, cordial, and placid, 



84 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



like that of a happy woman. She seemed un- 
affectedly glad to see him, as indeed she was ; 
and it was with an innocent womanly triumph 
that she felt she could welcome him in her own 
home for the first time. The time had come, 
she told herself, when she could hold out her 
hand and be of help to him, and show him how 
truly and sincerely she was his friend. It was 
all she had ever dared to hope for, and the time 
had come at last. Perhaps, if she had been less 
humble, less single-minded and inexperienced 
in the ways of the world, she might have been 
more conscious, more cai'eful, more afraid ; but 
the fresh, crisp winter sun was illuminating her 
world ; every thing seemed to speak to her of 
hope, promise, courage, and the dead thorn had 
ceased to wound. 

" I was told to come here to find yon," Dick 
said, after the first few words. "Madame 
Fontaine, I want you to tell me about Reine. 
I can not understand it. I have just come from 
the farm ; they tell me she has gone into a con- 
vent ; she will not be home for a week. What 
folly is this ?" 

Catharine saw he was vexed, and she tried 
to describe to him the state of depression and 
anxiety in which Reine had come to her to tell 
her of her resolution. . . "She had no idea 
you were coming," said Madame Fontaine. 

" But what else could she expect ?" said Dick. 
" She writes a miserable letter, poor dear ! She 
proposes to give me up ; she says I am cruel, 
and leave her here alone to bear all sorts of in- 
jurious suspicion and insult. Of course she 
must have known that this would bring me, and 
when I come I find her gone — vanished in this 
absurd way. Indeed, I wrote and told her to 
expect me ; but I see the letter unopened at the 
farm." Dick, whose faults were those of over- 
easiness, was now vexed and almost unreason- 
able. For one thing, he was angry with Reine 
for being unhappy. "Why will she always 
doubt and torture herself in this needless way ? 
Why should she mind the gossip of a few idiots ? 
I want to see her, and hear from her that she 
does not mean all she says about throwing me 
over." 

" Oh, indeed," said Madame Fontaine, " she 
does not mean it." 

" It is a very little time to wait, and I could 
not help promising. My good old uncle has 
done every thing for us," Butler went on ; " slie 
ought not to have been so over-sensitive when 
she knew it would all be set right." 

Catharine wished he could have seen the girl ; 
one look of her proud sweet eyes would have been 
more to the purpose than all her own gentle ex- 
postulations. They were walking slowly toward 
the house all this time, when at a turn of the 
path, and coming from behind a bush, they met 
a short stumpy figure in a sun-bonnet. " I 
have not even told my husband your secret," 
Catharine was saying, and she stopped short, al- 
though she remembered afterward that Madame 
Me'rard spoke no English. 

But Madame Me'rard's little eyes could see, 



penetrate, transfix. Oh, it was not easy to 
blind Madame Me'rard; she could see Catharine 
looking and talking earnestly to this unknown 
young man ; she could see his expression as he 
rejilied to her appeal. Secret — surely Madame 
Fontaine had said secret. Oh ! it was horrible. 
Madame Merard knew enough English for that. 
Secret! could she have heard aright? 

"I do not know this gentleman," said Ma- 
dame Me'rard, standing in the middle of the 
pathway on her two feet, and staring blankly. 

" Let me present Mr. Butler," said Catharine, 
gently, in French. 

"Monsieur Fontaine is not at home," said 
Madame Me'rard, still scowling and sniffing the 



"Mr. Butler is coming again to-morrow to 
see him," said Catharine. 

"Indeed !" said the old lady. 

If Madame Me'rard could have had her way, 
Dick would never have entered the chalet again. 
What infatuation was it that prompted Madame 
Fontaine to ask him to dinner — to invite him — 
to press refreshment on him ? Even old Me- 
rard came out with some proposition. Eau su- 
cree? One would think it flowed ready made 
from the sea. Happily she herself was there. 
No doubt her presence would prevent this young 
man from coming as often as he would other- 
wise have done. There was a secret flattery in 
this reflection. 

But Dick was hardly out of the house when 
Madame Merard began to speak her mind. 
Perhaps it was an English custom for young 
women to invite strange gentlemen to dinner in 
their husband's absence. Oh, she required no 
explanation. She could see quite plainly for 
herself, only she confessed that it was what she 
herself would not have done — not now, at her 
present age. In her time a wife could devote 
herself to the domestic hearth. Her husband's 
approbation was all that she desired. Now it 
seemed that excitement, dissipation, admiration, 
were indispensable. " Dinners in town," said 
the old lady, darkly, " music at home, expe- 
ditions, literaJure, correspondence, visits! . . ." 

"Dear Madame Me'rard," said Catharine, "I 
only go to Tracy." 

"Hon! and is not that enough?" said Ma- 
dame Me'rard, angrily stirring something in a 
saucepan (it was the tisane the devoted wife 
liked to administer to poor Monsieur Merard, 
who secretly loathed the decoction. He was 
now sitting in the office to avoid tlie fumes). 
"Tracy! that abode of vanity and frivolity! 
Where else would you go?" 

Tracy, in truth, was the secret mainspring of 
all Madame Merard's indignation and jealousy 
The chateau had never called upon the chalet 
in Le'onie's reign — never once. Madame Me'- 
rard herself was not invited, even now. But 
now, since the family had returned, notes and 
messages were forever coming for this English- 
woman. Madame de Tracy had caught cold ; 
Catharine must go down to see her in her bed- 
room. Madame de Tracy had bought a new 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



85 



bonnet ; Catharine must give her opinion. Ma- 
dame de Traoy could not disagree with any 
member of her household that Madame Fontaine 
was not sent for to listen to the story. And, in 
truth, Catharine was so discreet, so silent and 
sympathetic, that she seemed created to play the 
role of confidante. The countess really loved 
the little woman. Poor Catharine ! she some- 
times thought that she would be glad to go no 
more to a place where she was so much made 
of and so kindly treated. It seemed hard to 
come home and to compare the two. One place 
full of welcoming words of kindness and liber- 
ality ; the other, narrow, chill, confined. And 
yet here she had met with truest kindness, 
thought the little creature, remembering all Fon- 
taine's devotion and patient kindness. She was 
thinking of this now as she met the onslaught 
of the old lady, who went on with her attack, 
bombs flying, shells exploding, cannon going otf, 
while the horrible steam of the saucepan seemed 
to choke and sicken the poor little enemy. 

"Yes," cried the furious old lady. "If }'0u 
loved your husband, I could forgive you all! 
but you do not love him, and he knows it, and 
his life is destroyed. You have come into this 
peaceful circle with a heart elsewhere. You 
look upon us with contempt. You scorn our 
simple ways. Your fine friends come and in- 
sult me, and you secretly compare us with them 
and their powdered lackeys. Ah I do you im- 
agine that we do not know it, though you are 
so silent ? Do you imagine that Charles is not 
aware of all that passes in your mind ? He 
knows it, for I have told him. But he is loyal, 
and good, and tender, and he does not reproach 
you for having brought sorrow and disturbance 
into the chalet, formerly so peaceful." And 
old Merard banged the lid of the saucepan, and 
took a great flourish of snuff". Poor Catharine 
turned as pale as she had done once before, and 
gave a little cry and ran to the door. Fon- 
taine was not standing there to make things 
smoother. 

It was horrible, and, what was most hard to 
bear was, there was some truth in the angry old 
woman's reproach — how much truth Madame 
Merard herself did not know. Catharine could 
not bear the house ; it seemed to stifle her; the 
fumes of that choking stew seemed pursuing 
her. She pulled a cloak over her shoulders, 
and took up her hood, and went out. Another 
time she might have been less moved. But to- 
day, when she had met Dick again, when all her 
heart had been softened and stirred by memo- 
ries of past emotions, these reproaches seemed 
to her to have a meaning they might not have 
had another time. Old Me'rard nodded, and 
called to her through the office window, but 
Catharine shook her head -with a gentle little 
movement and hurried out. This was what the 
sight of her old love had done for her. She 
had been glad at the time to see him once more, 
but now, when she thought of Fontaine, her 
heart seemed to die within her. Was he un- 
happy, and by her fault? What a weary maze 



the last few years had been ! In and out, and 
round and about she had wandered, hoping to 
go right, and coming out again and again at the 
same blank passage. And yet she had tried, 
Heaven knows she had tried, and prayed to be 
helped, and hoped for peace in time, and this 
was the end !^a good man's life embittered and 
destroyed — had not his mother said so ? — her 
own life saddened and wasted in hopeless endur- 
ance, when elsewhere, perhaps, a worthier fate 
might have been hers. What had she done, 
she thought, to be so tortured? She had got 
up on the cliff" by this time. She was plucking 
the long stems of the poppies as she went along. 
She felt as if she, too, had been torn up by some 
strong hand only to be flung away. She had 
been mad, or she would never have taken this 
fatal step. And yet she had hoped for a peace- 
ful home, and she had thought that her poor lit- 
tle sisters at least might have found a safe ref- 
uge, and now, by her own act, they were parted 
from her forever perhaps. 

With small strength of her own to bear with 
wrongs or to assert her rights, she was apt to 
cling to those about her, to rely on them, to 
leave her fate in their hands. She wished no 
harm to any mortal being ; she could not say a 
hard word, but she could fear, and shrink away, 
and wince and shriek with pain. The sensitive 
little frame could thrill with a terror and an- 
guish unconceived by stronger and tougher or- 
ganizations. It was not of Dick she was think- 
ing, but of Fontaine all this time, and her. re- 
morse was all the greater because her heart was 
so true and so full of gratitude to him. She 
had left her fate in the hands of others, and this 
was what had come of it; a poor little heart 
crushed and half broken, another person dragged 
by her fault into sorrow and remorse, a deed 
done which could never, never be undone. A 
crime ! ah ! was it indeed a crime which she had 
committed that could never be repented of? 
Was there no atonement possible — no pardon — 
no relenting of fate ? 

The colors were all aglow still, for the sun 
was scarcely set; the red, and blue, and striped 
petticoats, and the white caps of the fish-wives 
down in Petitport, jumbled up into bright, pret- 
ty combinations. The creeping grays and shades 
gave tone and softness to the pretty scene. In- 
doors the fires were flaring and crackling, and 
presently the church bell came ringing up the 
street in very sweet tinkling tones, calling the 
villagers to the saluf, or evening service. The 
peaceful twilight prayers, coming at the close 
of the day's work, seem to sanctify to silence the 
busy cares of the long noisy hours — to absolve, 
to tranquilize before the darkness of the night. 

The bell tolled on — the cure' left his house 
and walked through his wild overgrown wilder- 
ness to the vestiary. Poor little Catharine, 
who had been flitting along the hedge of the 
great field, heard it too. She had walked till 
she was weary, then she had rested till her heart 
grew so sad that she could not sit still, and she 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



jumped up again and walked to Arcy without 
stopping, and without purpose, and then came 
back along the cliffs and across into the fields. 
She was weary of pain ; she felt as if she had 
no strength left to bear, or even to suffer or to 
repent ; she dragged on, utterly worn and dis- 
pirited, holding one or two pojipies in her hand 
still with the white drapery of her dress. Cath- 
arine was a delicate and orderly person, and she 
held up her dress with unconscious care, even 
when she was struggling in the Slough of De- 
spond. It was indeed the Slough of Despond 
for her. A vision of the future came before her 
so utterly unendurable, with a struggle between 
right, and duty, and wrong, for which she felt 
herself so unfitted that she longed to lie down 
in the hard brown furrows of the field and die, 
and own herself vanquished, and give up the 
fight, and struggle no longer. 

I think it was just then the bell began to toll. 
It seemed like a sudden sympathy, and com- 
panionship, and comfort to the poor thing. It 
turned her thoughts, it gave her some present 
object, for she began to walk in the direction of 
the church. She crossad the brook, along which 
the figures were coming, with the great glowing 
west at their backs. She turned up the quiet 
end of the village, and followed M. le Cure at a 
distance as he led the way through the back 
court of the church into which the vestry open- 
ed ; and the side door near the altar of St. Jo- 
seph was where the poor little heart -petition 
was offered up for strength, and help, and peace. 

Cathai'ine saw the people prostrate all about. 
She knew what passionate prayers some of them 
were praying. There was poor The'rese Four- 
nier, whose little girl was dying. There was 
Joseph Leroux, who had cruel trouble in his 
home ; and then presently Madame Fontaine 
caught sight of some one kneeling on a low 
straw chair, and she recognized her husband, 
although his face was buried in his hands. 

It was very quiet and solemn. Very few of 
us can come in to an evening service untouched 
or unsoftened. To many it is but the contrast 
of the daylight and the candles which makes 
the scene impressive. But some of us must be 
content to be dazzled by a candle in this world, 
to measure the sun's light by a taper's flame. 
In this man's church and that man's, candles 
are shining at the high altar, which seem bright 
enough for a time : only when the service is 
over and the prayers are ended shall we come 
out into the open air, and shall our eyes behohl 
the fathomless waves of the mighty light of 
heaven. 

Catharine, who was worn out and exhausted, 
sank into a chair in her dim corner, grateful for 
ease after her pain. She was no longer feeling 
much : a sort of calm had come after the storm. 
The priest's voice ceased uttering, the choristers 
were silent, the service was ended, and people 
rose from their knees, took up their baskets and 
umbrellas — one old woman slung on her hotte 
again — and they all went away. Catharine 
mechanically tried to escape by the side door 



through which she had entered. Her chief 
troubles in life had come from the timidity and 
want of courage and trust in herself. She did 
not know why she was flying from her husband 
now — from poor Fontaine, who also had been 
offering up his petitions. He prayed for his 
mother's rheumatism ; he prayed for a blessing 
upon his wife and child ; for Catharine's con- 
version and happiness ; for a little more calni 
and repose at home in the chalet ; for a little 
gayety even, if possible. Fontaine did not like 
to ask for too much at once ; and though one 
smiles at such a simple creed, it does not seem 
as if a humble petition for a calm and cheerful 
spirit was the worse means of attaining so good 
a thing. The maire jumped up quickly from 
his knees when the service was over, and uncon- 
sciously madfe for the same side door through 
which his wife was escaping, and so it happened 
that the two came face to face. 

"At last I find you!" he cried, as they both 
stepped out almost together on to the worn stone 
flight which led down by a few steps to the 
ground. Fontaine was almost inclined to be- 
lieve in a miracle after all as lie looked at his 
wife. They were a handsome coujjle. Mere 
Nanon thought, hobbling away with her great 
basket on her back. They stood looking at one 
another in the glow of the gloaming ; the breeze 
came salt and fresh from the sea ; the twilight 
was warm still, with brown and fading golden 
tints; the silver stars were coming out over- 
head. "Imagine my anxiety," said Fontaine. 
" I have been looking for you every where. I 
went home. Ma mere told me you were gone. 
You were not at the farm. I did not know 
what to do or where to search." 

" I walked to Arcy," said Catharine, looking 
up with her dark, wistful eyes. " Oh, Charles, 
I am very unhappy." 

"Unhappy, dear?" said Fontaine. 

" I am unhappy to think that through me you 
are unhappy," said the poor little woman. " In- 
deed and indeed I have tried to do my duty." 

"Don't talk like this," said Fontaine. "You 
are a little angel, my Catharine. What has 
any one been saying to you?" 

Poor little Catharine ! Half in sobs, half in 
words, the explanation came, and with the ex- 
planation half her terrors vanished. Fontaine 
was a little puzzled. She did not love him 
enough! Why not? She would gladly love 
him more. Only now that he was so kind did 
she know how much he deserved to be loved. 
She had broken his heart. Madame Me'rard 
said so. It was a bewildering story. But he 
began to understand by degrees. 

"Dear Catharine," Fontaine said at last, 
very sensibly, " I am many years older than 
you. I do not require a romantic affection : I 
want a good, kind little wife to take a little care 
of me, and to like me a little. I am satisfied 
— more than satisfied. In my eyes there is no 
one to compare to you. Madame Me'rard is a 
most excellent person, but impressionable ; she 
does not mean always what she says. Do not 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIiT. 



87 



be unhappy, my very dear friend ; believe I am 
happy if you are ; I ask for nothing else." 

But before they reached home Catharine had 
told him wiiy it was that Madame Me'rard's re- 
proaches had stung her so sharply. 

" Do you remember one night when you asked 
me why I threw some dead flowers into the 
sea?" said Catharine. "I wanted to throw 
away the memory of my silly girlish fancies. 
Indeed it is true what I told you then — no one 
ever loved me but you ; I have never spoken to 
any one of what I am speaking now. You are 
the only person in all the world who cared 
enough for me to give me a resting-place." 

Fontaine begged her to leave off. He believed 
her, and understood her perfectly. But Catha- 
rine could not stop; and as she poured forth 
her story, in her agitation and emotion poor 
Dick's secret escaped her someliow. "To-day 
Mr. Butler came to speak to me of something 
I have known ever since — ever since the sum- 
mer. He and Keine are going to marry one 
another. Sometimes they have come to me to 
help them. Oh, Charles, I can not help being 
glad to be his friend, and to help him when I 
can, even though I am your wife. But oh ! 
what have I done? I ought not to have told 
you." 

As they walked along many of the villagers 
wondered what Monsieur Fontaine and his wife 
were talking of so earnestly. They spoke of it 
afterward, and Catharine, too, remembered that 
walk. They went along the dusky street — the 
little woman with dark eyes glowing beneath 
her scarlet hood Fontaine looked very pale, 
for he was much affected by her confidence. 

" I am profoundly touched," he said, " by the 
trust you repose in me. You shall see that I 
have entire confidence in you. The news you 
give me is surprising, but not utterly unexpect- 
ed. At this moment I am too much preoccupied 
to realize its great importance." 

Candles were alight in tlie chalet, the dinner- 
table was laid, and something was simmering on 
the hob. It was a tisane-de-the, without any 
milk, which Madame Merard was preparing as 
a conciliation treat for her daughter-in-law. The 
old lady had been alarmed by her long absence ; 
she thought she had gone too far, perhaps, and 
was sincerely glad to see her come in safely with 
her husband. 

"Coffee is good, and so is wine, and a little 
eau de carmes occasionally to fortify the stom- 
ach," said old Merard, in his little piping voice, 
after dinner; "but tea is worth nothing at all." 

"Englishwomen like to destroy themselves 
with tea. Monsieur Merard," said his wife, al- 
most^ graciously for her. 

While the little party at the chalet discussed 
the merits of tea and eau de carmes — while Fon- 
taine, always kind and gentle, seemed to try in 
a thousand Avays to show his wife how happy he 
was, and how he loved her, and how unfounded 
her terrors had been — Dick waited impatiently 
at the chateau for Reine's return. Catharine 
Beamish smiled, and chattered, and brightened 



them all up with her sweet spirits and happi- 
ness. She enjoyed every thing, insisted upon 
going every where, charmed every one. Er- 
nestine was furious at being made to play a sec- 
ond. The very morning after all this agitation 
Mrs. Beamish sent a little note by the maire, 
who had been up there, to implore Catharine to 
join them immediately. They were all going 
sight-seeing to Bayeux, first to the museum, and 
then to Caen, to pay Marthe a visit in her con- 
vent ; would Catharine please come too ? She 
was longing to see her. 

"I promised for you," said Fontaine. "I 
thought it would do you good to be with your 
friends. Madame de Tracy says you are look- 
ing ill," he added, looking anxiously at her. 

"How kind you are to me, Charles," cried 
Catharine, delighted, and looking well on an in- 
stant, as she jumped up and upset all her bobbins 
and reels. 

Fortunately for her. Monsieur and Madame 
Me'rard were not present. When they came in 
from a short stroll to the fish-market, Fontaine 
and Catharine had started. Toto told them that 
maman was going with the countess, and that 
she had got on her Indian shawl and her pretty 
rose-colored bonnet. 

"Grandmamma, do you like rose-color?" 
asked Toto. 

"No, no, no, my child," said Madame Me'- 
rard with a shudder. 




CHAPTER XVIIL 

THE ABBATE AUX DAMES. 

Meanwhile Catharine, in good spirits and 
in better heart than she had felt for many a day, 
was picking her way between the stones, and 
walking up the littlevillage street with her hus- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



band. Fontaine, nimbly advancing with neatly- 
gaitered feet, bowed right and left to his ac- 
quaintance, stopping every now and then to in- 
quire more particularly after this person's health, 
or that one's interest, as was his custom. The 
children were at play in the little gardens in 
front of the cottages, the women were sitting in 
groups dancing their bobbins, spinning, whir- 
ring, twisting, stitching. Their tongues were 
wagging to the flying of their fingers and the 
bobbing of their white caps. Some of the men 
were winding string upon nails fixed to the 
walls, some were mending their nets, others 
were taliving to the women; who answered, 
never ceasing their work for an instant. Be- 
tween the houses a faint, hazy sea showed glit- 
tering against the lime walls. Dominique, 
from the farm, came down the middle of tlie 
street with some horses clattering down, to the 
water ; Marion and others called out a greeting 
to him as he passed. " And when does Ma- 
demoiselle Chretien return ?" said Madame Po- 
tior from the door of her shop. 

"Who can tell?" said Dominique, clattering 
away. '» To-morrow perhaps." He took off 
his hat to Monsieur Fontaine, and Madame Po- 
ller beamed a recognition ^s they passed. 

Catharine asked her husband why so many 
of the men were at home. She had not been 
long enough by the sea to read the signs of the 
times in the southwest wind now blowing gently 
in their faces — in the haze which hid the dark 
rocks of the Calvados. 

Fontaine adjusted his glasses and looked up 
at the sky, and then at the faint blue horizontal 
line. "These fine mornings are often decep- 
tive," said he, "although it is hard to believe 
in bad weather on such a day as this." Every 
thing was so bright and so still, the wind so 
gentle, that it seemed as if gales could never 
blow again, or storms rise. The sun poured 
down upon the dusty road. Now and then the 
threads of the women at work stirred in the soft 
little breeze ; the voices sounded unusually dis- 
tinct — a cheerful echo of life from every door- 
way. Presently two men and a boy, tramping 
down toward the sea, passed by, carrying oars 
and rope-ends. These were Lefebvres, who 
evidently thought, like Catharine, that no storm 
need be apprehended when the sun shone so 
steadily and the sea lay so calm. The boy 
looked up and grinned, and his bright blue eyes 
gave a gleam of recognition, for he knew Ma- 
dame Fontaine; one of the men, Christophe 
Lefebvre, touched his cap ; the other, who was 
his cousin, tramped on doggedly. Joseph Le- 
febvre was the most obstinate man in the village, 
and no one dared remonstrate with him. Chris- 
tophe and he had words that morning, it was 
said, about their coming expedition, but it end- 
ed in Christophe going too at Isabeau's prayer. 
He never refused Isabeau any thing she asked, 
poor fellow — that was known to them all. The 
men went their way, and at some distance, 
watching them, and muttering to herself, old 
Nanon followed : her brown old legs trembled 



as she staggered along under her load of sea- 
weed. "Christophe was a fool," she said. 
"What did he mean by giving in to that dolt 
of a Joseph ?" So she passed in her turn, mut- 
tering and grumbling. Catharine would have 
stopped and spoken to her, but the old woman 
shook her head and trudged on. " What is it 
to you?" she was saying. "You have your 
man dry and safe upon shore, always at your 
side ; he is not driven to go out at the peril of 
his life to find bread to put into your mouth." 

The old woman's words meant nothing per- 
haps, but they struck Catharine with a feeling 
of vivid reality, for which she could hardly 
account. Poor souls, what a life was theirs — a 
life of which the sweetest and wholesomest food 
must be imbittered by the thought of the price 
which they might be called upon to pay for it 
some day. Yes, she had her "man," as Nanon 
called Monsieur Fontaine, and she looked at 
him as he walked beside her, active and brisk, 
and full of life and good-humor. He talked 
away cheerfully, of storms, and fish, and fisher- 
men, of the J'Jcole de Natation at Bayeux, which 
he had attended with much interest, and where 
he meant Toto to go before long ; he talked of 
the good and bad weather, storms, and of the 
great piles of sea-weed with which the coast was 
sometimes covered when the tide went down after 
a boisterous night. "That is a sight you must 
see, my very dear Catharine," said the maire. 
"People rise at the earliest dawn, and come 
down with carts and spades, and barrows and 
baskets. It would amuse you to see the vari- 
ous expedients for carrying away the vureck be- 
fore the evening tide." 

"But what do they do with it ?" said Catha- 
rine 

" It forms a most valuable manure," said the 
maire, in his instructive voice. "The odor is 
not agreeable, but its beneficial properties can 
not be too highly conimended. I remember, 
last spring, in the early dawn, some one tapping 
at my window, saying, ' Get up, get up. Mon- 
sieur le Maire, the varech is arrived.' I hastily 
dressed, and found all the company assembled 
upon the beach, although it was but three o'clock 
in the morning." They had come to the church 
at the end of the village by this time, and Mon- 
sieur le Cure' was descending the well-worn 
steps. He pulled oft' his three-cornered hat, 
and Fontaine, hastily stepping forward, panama 
in hand, returned the salutation, and asked M. 
le Cure' whether he would be at home in the 
course of half an hour? "I have certain 
paperasses to sign," said the maire, with a 
beaming and important face, " and I ventu^-e to 
ask if you would kindly witness them ? I will re- 
turn after escorting my wife to the chateau, " said 
the maire, with some slight complaisance at the 
thought of such good company. " She joins 
the niece of Madame de Tracy and others in an 
expedition to Bayeux." 

"We shall have rain soon," said the cure', 
looking at the horizon from the church. " We 
must make the most of this fine sunshine while 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



89 



it lasts." And as he spoke the whole place 
seemed to grow bright. 

"Joseph Lefebvre is putting out," said the 
maire. "It seems hazardous ; but these people 
are fish, not men." And he adjusted his eye- 
glass, and looked at a long low bank of clouds 
beyond the rocks of the Calvados. 

" There will be a storm to-night," said the 
cure, dryly. " Madame, however, has time to 
divert herself before it comes. I'm afraid Joseph 
will scarcely return a sec." 

"Monsieur le Cure," cried Fontaine, Avalking 
off, " I shall drop in at the presbytery on my 
my way home." 

Catharine looked after the cure' as he trudged 
away toward a cottage, where she, too, some- 
times paid visits of charity. The black figure 
with its heavy skirts passed through the brilliant 
waves of light. This light seemed to make 
every thing new and beautiful, the fields, the dis- 
tant lanes, the very grass along the roadside. 
The two, walking toward Tracy, presently reach- 
ed a place where the field-path joined the road, 
and wliere one of those wayside crosses which 
are so common in Normandy had been erected. 
Some faded garlands were still hanging to it, 
and the grass was growing between the stone 
steps. Here Fontaine stopped. 

' ' Is not that the carriage from Tracy coming 
to meet us ?" 

"Yes, I think so," Catharine answered. 

"Then I will leave you with your friends, for 
I have several things to do," Fontaine said, 
hastily. " Good-by, dear Catharine ; they will 
see you home ; they promised me they would, 
if I spared you to them." 

"Good-by, Charles," said Catharine. "Thank 
you for coming with me when you were so 
busy." 

Fontaine smdjed and kissed her forehead. 
"Good-by, my 'little Catharine," said he, a 
second time, so kindly that it seemed to her 
that the sound of his voice echoed long after he 
had spoken. When the carriage drove up, 
Catharine was standing quite still by the cross, 
watching Fontaine as he walked away. Once 
he turned and looked back, and then the slope 
of the field hid him from her eyes. 

"It was not like Monsieur Fontaine to run 
away from us," said Mrs. Beamish, cheerfully, 
driving up in her furs and smiles. "We came 
to meet you. My aunt changed her mind at 
the last moment, and wouldn't come. Ernestine 
declares we are going to see old rags and bones, 
and that it is a fast-day, and they won't let us 
into the convent. But we meau to try, don't 
we? Jump in, dear." 

The convent of the Augustines at Caen stands 
upon a hill next to the great Cathedral of the 
Holy Trinity, which the people call I'Abbaye 
aux Dames. The convent walls inclose shady 
lime-walks, and quadrangles, and galleries, and 
flights of steps, along which the white nuns go 
drifting. The galleries lead to sick wards and 
dispensaries, to refuges and nurseries. The 
care of the soldier's hospital is given to the 



nuns, and it is almost a city which you come to 
within the great outer gates. Life and prayer, 
and work, and faith, the despairs of this world, 
and the emblems of the next, meet you at every 
step in the halls, and courts, and quiet gardens, 
in the sunshine and shadow, peopled by this 
pathetic multitude — men, and women, and chil- 
dren, who have fled hither for refuge. They 
come up from the great battle-fields of the 
world, and from the narrow sti'eets and dark 
tenements below. Some go to the hospital, 
some to the convent, and some to the little 
grave-yard upon the hill-side, from whence you 
may see the city lying in the plain, and the 
river shining and flowing, and the distant curve 
of encompassing hills painted with the faint and 
delicate colors of the north. 

De Tracy led the two Catharines, Dick and 
Beamish toiling up the steep streets with their 
rugged stones. They crossed a lonely "Place" 
at last, where the sun beat upon the grass-grown 
pavements, and no one was to be seen but some 
masons chipping at the great blocks of marble 
which were being prepared for the restoration 
of the cathedral. There it stood before them, 
high up above the town, silent, and gleaming 
white, and beyond it the two great gates, closed 
and barred, with the words Hotel Dieu em- 
blazoned upon them. Heine had passed 
through those gates. Butler was thinking as 
he stood waiting with the others for the porter- 
ess to come with the key and admit them into 
the precincts. To Butler there was an inde- 
scribable sadness about the place. The monot- 
onous sound of the blows from the workmen's 
mallets seemed to fill the air. He looked at 
the closed way, at the great silent cathedral, at 
the distant valley ; some presentiment saddened 
and oppi'essed him : none of the others felt as 
he did. Catharine was in high spirits— gay in 
the passing excitement, thankful for relief after 
her pain, happy in the consciousness of her 
husband's trust and Butler's friendship. 

As for Mrs. Beamish, every thing was grist 
that came to her mill ; she was one of those 
princesses who know how to grind gold out of 
straw. Beamish used to laugh at her energy 
and enthusiasm, but he loved her for it. Fos- 
sils, doubtful relics. Bishop Odo's staff, jolting 
omnibuses, long half-houi-s in waiting-rooms — 
Mrs. Beamish laughed, and enjoyed every thing 
untiringly. She stood now leaning against the 
iron gate, and holding one great bar in her 
hand, as she chattered on in her pleasant way, 
while Catharine, who had perched herself upon 
a block of stone, sat listening to the talk of 
the others. It was only woman's talk after all 
— of needle-work, and of samplers, and of 
stitches, but the stitches had been set eight 
hundred years ago, and the seamstress was an 
empress, and the pattern was the pattern of her 
times. They had just come from the Bayeux 
tapestry. "I should as soon have thought of 
seeing the Gordian knot," cried Mrs. Beamish, 
flippantly. 

"Or Penelope's web," said Dick. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



"Hush," said Beamish. "Here comes the 
abbess." 

A little, bright-ej'ed, white-robed sister, fol- 
lowed by an attendant in a blue cotton gown, 
now came to the gate and unlocked it. " Ma- 
demoiselle will conduct yoa over the hospital," 
she said, in answer to their various requests and 
inquiries. "You wish to see Mademoiselle 
Chre'tien, madame ? The ladies here who are 
in retreat admit no visits. I am sorry to re- 
fuse you, but the convent is closed to the pub- 
lic." Then tliey asked for Marthe. It was a 
fast-day, and as Ernestine had predicted, no 
strangers could be allowed to see the ladies. 
Any vague hopes which might have brought 
Dick all the way from Petitport were quickly 
extinguished by the gentle little nun who glided 
away from them along the arched cloister, in 
and out of the shade and the light, with silent 
steps, like a ghost. 

Then the lay sister took up the story in a 
cheerful, sing-song voice, and began to recite 
the statistics of this House Beautiful. So many 
loaves, so many fislies, so many doctors, so many 
caldrons of soup, of physic, so many people 
cured, so many buried. She led them into the 
kitchen, where two nuns were busy cooking vege- 
tables, while a tliird was sitting at a table chant- 
ing out canticles from the Psalms, to which the 
others I'esponded loudly. She led them into the 
long wards where the sick were lying, with their 
nurses coming and going from bedside to bed- 
side ; one p.ale man, with great dark eyes, raised 
himself wearily to see them go by, and then fell 
back again upon his pillow. The curtains of 
tire bed next to his were di'awn close, and 
Catharine bent her head as she hurried past it. 
The nursery was the prettiest and most cheer- 
ful sight of all. It was on the ground floor, 
where two or three rooms opened out upon one 
of the cloisters, and in these rooms were small 
cradles and babies asleep, with their little fat 
hands warm and soft upon the pillows, and 
sojpe little children playing quietly, and some 
old nuns keeping watch. The shadows made 
a shifting pattern on their woolen gowns, and 
the lights through the open door painted the 
unconscious little groups. They sat there busy, 
peaceful, beatified, with tlie cliildren all about 
them, and saintly halos round about their worn 
old heads. They were not saints, only old 
women as yet. Though, indeed, it is not more 
difficult to imagine them as saints and angels 
one day yet to come, than to think of them like 
the children round about — young, golden-haired, 
round-eyed. One of the children, a little boy 
called Henri, took a gi-eat fancy to Dick, and 
trotted up to him with a sticky piece of sugar, 
which he silently thrust into his hand. A baby, 
who was sitting upon the floor, began to make 
a cooing noise as if to call attention, but when 
Mrs. Beamish stooped to take her up into her 
arms she saw that the poor little thing was 
blind. 

" Blind from her birth," the nurse cried, " but 
a little angel of goodness." 



" I think if I had not married I should havi 
liked this life," said Mrs. Beamish thoughtfully 
"And you, Madame Fontaine?" 

Little Catharine flushed up, and shook her 
head gently. 

"Our sisters are very happy," said their 
conductress. "We have three who are over 
eighty years of age. They never come out of 
the convent, where they remain with the novi- 
ces." 

"Do any of them ever go back into the 
world ?" asked Beamish in a John Bull sort of 
tone. 

"Last year a novice came," said the conduct- 
ress ; " there was a grand ceremony at her re- 
ception. She came, dressed as a bride, in a 
great carriage with two horses, and many gen- 
tlemen and ladies were present to take leave 
of her. Then her mother came and cried, and 
threw herself at her feet. The unfortunate 
girl's courage failed ; apparently hers was no 
real vocation. She left in a common hackney- 
coach next morning, disgraced and pitied by us 
all. . . . This is the Abbaye, which is, as you 
see, in reparation." 

Matilda and her successors have raised the 
church upon tall u])springing arches, so light, so 
beautiful, that they strike one like the vibrations 
of music as one enters. If our faith of late 
years had been shown by such works as these, 
what strange creeds and beliefs would have 
seemed represented by the Egyptian mauso- 
leums, the stucco, the Grecian temples, in which 
we have been content to assemble. " Here, 
through a side-door in the massive wall, they 
entered in among the springing forest of arches, 
first passing through a small outer chapel which 
seemed echoing with a distant chant, and where 
a coffin was lying on the marble pavement. 
The lay sister quietly pointed to it, saying, 
" The bearers will be presently here to take it 
away. It is a young man who died in the hos- 
pital two days ago. We do not know his name." 
And then she opened a grating and led them 
into the church. The}' were all silent as they 
moved about ; the whiteness and cheerfulness 
of the place seemed at once lovely and sad to 
Catharine: she was glad to be there. "The 
tomb of the empress is in the choir," their con- 
ductress continued, " behind that black curtain. 
You have seen her tapisserie, no doubt, I can 
not take you in, for, as I told you, the service is 
going on, but, if you like, I may raise the cur- 
tain for an instant." 

She was quite at home and matter-of-fact. 
Catharine Beamish was silent and imjiressed; 
Catharine Fontaine felt as if it was a sort of 
allegorical vision passing before her ; she could 
hardly believe in the reality of this calm oasis in 
the midst of the roaring work-a-day world : the 
coffin, the children, tlie sick people, all seemed 
like a dream somcliow. She was thinking this 
when the sister called them to the grating which 
separated the choir from the nave, and raised 
the curtain, and as she did so a flood of yellow 
light from the west window came pouring 



1 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



91 



through the bars, and then the most unreal sight 
of all met Catharine's eyes. It was like some 
vision of a saint in ecstasy. In the midst of 
the choir stood the great black tomb ; all round 
about the praying nuns knelt motionless in their 
white garments. The priests at tiie altar were 
intoning in a low sing-song voice. All the 
fivces were toward them ; . closed eyes, some 
hands clasped, some crossed devoutly, some 
outstretched in supplication. Catharine sud- 
denly seized Dick's arm: "Look!" she whis- 
pered. 

"Do you see her?" he asked, eagerly, in a 
low voice, turning to Madame Fontaine ; but 
the curtain fell almost at that instant, and it 
was too late. 

" No, madame," said the lay sister, decidedly, 
" I must not do it again ; it is impossible." 

She was deaf to all their entreaties, and stood 
before tlie pully to prevent any one attempting 
to look again. 

"She saw you, "said Catharine to Butler, as 
they walked away at once, touched, impressed, 
and curious, with the sound of the chanting in 
their ears. Presently the unconscious Beamish 
began asking them all if they had seen that 
beautiful young woman to tlie right? "She 
was not so well trained as the others, and opened 
her eyes," said he. 

The last thing to see was the garden, where 
the sick people were strolling in the sunshine, 
and then by a great alley of lime-trees they 
came to the hill beyond the grave-yard, from 
whence tliey could look for miles and miles at 
plains and hills all bathed in misty sunsliine. 
A little wind was blowing, and smoke drifting 
over the gables of the town, and an odd bank of 
clouds seemed piled against the west. Coming 
back under the bare branches of the avenue 
tliey met the little funeral procession, and stood 
still to let it pass. Two choristers were trudg- 
ing ahead, chanting as they hurried along ; an 
old white-headed priest was hurrying beside 
the coffin. Some birds were faintly chirruping 
overhead, the wind came rushing through the 
bare branches, shaking the sliadows upon the 
dry turf. 

"It does one good to come to this place. I 
shall ask my husband to bring me here again," 
said Catharine. 

No one answered her. Butler was a little 
ahead, walking with his hands deep in his pock- 
ets. Catharine Beamish had got hold of her 
husband's arm and was talking to him. For 
the first time that day a strange chill presenti- 
ment came to Madame Fontaine; she remem- 
bered it afterward. As she came out through 
the gates again it seemed to her as if she was 
leaving behind her more of peace and of prayer 
than were to be found outside, and yet she was 
glad to escape and to be carried away by the 
tide of life. 

Who shall say where peace is to be found ? 
George Eliot has nobly written that the king- 
dom of heaven is within us, and not to be found 
here or there by those who vainly search for it. 



Reine Chretien thought once that she had dis- 
covered it to the sound of the chanted prayers 
in the companionship of sacred, indifferent 
women. She had been torn by mistrust. 
Catharine's poor little warning had roused the 
sleeping jealousy of this strange and difficult 
nature. She had hated herself— struggled 
against it, forgotten it in a passionate enthusiasm 
of devotion, of gratitude ; and by some strange 
chance, praying in the choir, within the gates 
of the convent, she had opened her eyes to see 
the curtain raised, and, like a terrible revela- 
tion, the secret visions of her heart standing 
realized before her. There were Dick and 
Catharine standing outside at the grating, side 
by side ; and within it, the nuns at their prayers, 
and Reine still on her knees, with a sudden tem- 
pest raging in her heart. 

Another time the chance might have meant 
nothing, but now she was in a demoralized state 
of mind, and, as it often happens, the very eiforts 
which she had made to overcome the evil seemed 
to increase its strength, like water poured upon 
the flames. 

Certain combinations, which at one time, to 
some people, seem utterly shifting and unmean- 
ing, to others are, as it were, stamped and 
arrested forever in their minds. A certain set 
of emotions have led up to them ; a certain re- 
sult follows. The real events of life happen 
silently, and in our hearts the outward images 
are but signs and faint reflections of its hopes, 
longings, failings, victories. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

FONTAINE TO THE RESCUE. 

In the absence of his wife, poor Fontaine had 
been making mischief at home ; he had let out 
Dick's secret to Madame de Tracy, who hap- 
pened to meet him as he was coming out of the 
cure's house with his paperasses, as he called 
them, in his hands. She had been transacting 
some business with the lace-makers at the end 
of the village, and had walked home with him, 
talking of one thing and another, little thinking 
as she went along that this was the last of their 
many gossips. Madame de Tracy listened with 
interest to Fontaine, who was speaking of his 
wife, and saying how happy he was, how good 
she was, how charmingly she bore with the 
small peculiarities of a tender and excellent, 
but over-anxious and particular mother. 

"My nephew told me that he was afraid Ma- 
dame Me'rard had taken a great dislike to him," 
said the countess, laughing. "I know she is 
a little difficult at times." 

"She is a person of great experience," said 
Fontaine, " and one can not blame her, madame, 
for feeling that in a usual way the acquaintance 
of an elegant young man of the world is not de- 
sirable for a young wife in Catharine's position. 
She might be tempted to draw comparisons — 
but of course, under the circumstances — Mon- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



sieur Butler is engaged," and here poor Fontaine 
suddenly stopped short and looked Madame de 
Tracy in the face .... "You did not know 
it," he said; "I have forgotten myself — ma- 
dame, I entreat you to ask no more — let my 
words be buried in oblivion." 

He might have known that Madame de 
Tracy, of all the people in the world, was the 
last person to comply with such a request. She 
asked a hundred questions, she plied him in 
every way. She never rested for one instant 
until she finally extracted poor Reine's name 
from her victim. Her next proceeding was to 
rush off" to the farm in a state of indescribable 
agitation. Petitpere was plodding about in com- 
pany with his friend Barbeau, the wisps of 
straw hanging from their wooden sabots. To- 
gether they poked the pigs, inspected their 
barns, examined the white horse's lame foot. 
The apparition of the countess took them by 
surprise ; but old Chre'tien courteously replied 
to all Madame de Tracy's agitated questions. 
Reine was absent ; she would return next day 
— offered her refreshment, a little bread and 
batter after her walk, a little milk — would she 
not rest ? She was tired, would she not per- 
mit him to send her home on Annette, who 
should be instantly saddled? for the weather 
was threatening, and as he spoke the storm 
which Fontaine had predicted broke. So Ma- 
dame de Tracy had to wait for shelter at the 
farm, and meanwhile the little party of excur- 
sionists had not yet reached home. The car- 
riage was waiting at tlie station, and as they 
passed through the streets Bayeux looked black, 
and then again suddenly lighted by gleams 
from the setting sun, the window-panes blazed 
here and there, drops of rain began to fall, and 
presently clouds came spreading and hid in the 
pale gold, and the rain began to pour upon the 
roads and hedges, by the stunted fruit-trees, 
upon the wide fields which spread to the sea ; 
and soon the mists came creeping up, and hid 
the distant glimpses of the sea and the hills. 

They were all tired and silent, and spoke 
little on the way back. Baptiste was standing 
at the door of the chateau when the carriage 
drove up through the gusts of rain. " Madame 
has not yet returned from the village," he said. 
" She has sent a message ; she wishes the car- 
riage to go for her to Lefebvre's cottage. The 
poor wife is in great trouble ; he has not yet 
returned. They say the boat has been seen 
making for the port." 

"Ah! poor woman!" said Madame Fon- 
taine, with an ache in her heart. A sudden 
gust of wind and rain came blowing in her face, 
and Baptiste staggered under the great umbrella 
which he was holding over Mrs. Beamish as she 
alighted. 

Dick had got down too, but he sprang into 
the carriage again when he found that De Tracy 
did not get off the box, but was buttoning up his 
coat and preparing to go on. "Good-by," said 
Catharine Beamish, and then the carriage set 
off again. The horses went with a sudden 



swiftness, and presently they came in sight of a 
brown sea tossing fiercely in the twilight. Tracy 
stood up upon the box, and tried to make out 
something of the boat, but the wind blew his 
hat off into the carriage, and he could see noth- 
ing. The wind had changed since the morning, 
and was now blowing in fierce gusts from the 
northwest. They ■ passed the wayside cross, 
upon which the wet garlands were swinging to 
and fro ; the wet was dripping upon the stony 
steps, the mists were thickening behind it. 
Catharine could hardly believe that this was the 
sunshiny place where she had parted from her 
husband in the morning. Then they passed 
the church, and the dark -looking gates of the 
presbytery, over which the bushy branches were 
swinging and creaking ; and then they came at 
last to Lefebvre's cottage, which stood by itself 
at some little distance from the street. Here 
Jean pulled up, but no one seemed to be there. 
There was the sound of an infant's voice scream- 
ing within, and at last two or three little fright- 
ened children came crowding round the door, 
and peeped out and ran away. "Ills sont alle' 
voire," one little girl said at last; and the 
countess was gone too, she told them, in reply 
to Catharine's questions. 

The rain fell with soaking force. The child 
inside the cottage went on crying in piercing 
sad tones, forlorn, helpless, deserted. Jean look- 
ed in. " It is on the floor, poor little wretch," 
he said. 

" Please let me out," Catharine cried sudden- 
ly ; "that poor little baby ! I know it. I will 
wait here for Madame de Tracy, if you will tell 
my husband where I am, and ask him to come 
for me presently." 

"Had we not better take you home," said 
Jean ; " how will you get back ?" 

" Oh, Charles does not mind the rain ; it is a 
very little way," Catharine said. " I must stay 
with these children." 

The two young men turned and walked away, 
with the empty carriage following, as Catharine 
disappeared into the cottage. She took the 
wailing child into her arms, and throwing a few 
branches of colza upon the fire, she sat down 
upon a low stool, and tried to warm it and com- 
fort it by the blaze. It was a long, dark room, 
with the usual oaken cupboard and the deep 
chimney of those parts, like the chimneys in our 
own cottages. The wind shook the window- 
panes, and the slant rain struck against it as it 
fell ; the fire seemed to make a melancholy and 
fitful glare, every now and then lighting up a 
little plaster statuette of the Virgin, ornamented 
with a tiny garland of artificial flowers. The 
kitchen was in confusion : chairs pushed about, 
the spinning-shuttle lying on the floor. Catha- 
rine noticed it all when her eyes grew accus- 
tomed to the darkness; for little light came 
from the window, and she had asked tlie chil- 
dren to close the door. They were standing 
round her now, staring in amazement. One of 
them who had not seen her before thought it 
was, perhaps, a lady from heaven who had come 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



93 



to quiet the baby. As she hushed the wailing 
baby, she had taken off her bonnet, and her 
sweet little dark head was bent thoughtfully as 
one thing after another very far away from the 
cottage came into her mind. Every now and 
then the baby gave a little appealing moan; 
but after a time it dropped off to sleep in the 
folds of the Cashmere shawl. Now and then 
Catharine would think she heard a stepj and 
imagined it might be Fontaine coming to fetch 
her ; but no one came for a very long time — so 
at least it seemed to her. 

When the door did open at last it was old 
Nanon who appeared, slowly hobbling in from 
the storm outside, and staring and blinking with 
her odd, bloodshot eyes. A little rush of sleet 
seemed to burst in with her, and the baby set 
up a fresh moaning. The old woman did not 
seem surprised to see Catharine there. 

"I came back to look to the children," she 
said. " If I had known you were here I should 
have staid down below. They can't get the 
boat round the point. Isabeau has gone to the 
Chapel of our Lady to pray for their safety. 
That child wants food." And, going to a cup- 
board, she poured some milk into a cup, and 
gave it to the baby. The other children clam- 
ored round her, but Nanon pushed them away. 
Then she pulled the wheel with trembling haste 
up to the fire, and began to spin as if from habit, 
mumbling and looking at the door. "They 
will bring us news," she said. "M. le Maire 
is on the plage, and M. de Tracy and the count- 
ess. Ah ! it is not the first time they have gone 
down. . . . Look at my wheel ; there it is, 
forty years old. Many things have happened 
since it first began to turn." 

"How many thousand times it must have 
turned!" Catharine said. 

"Ah! madame, many a time I have sat up 
till two o'clock in the morning to get bread to 
put into my children's mouths, after my poor 
defunct man's death. They used to cry some- 
times because I had no food to give them. But 
M. le Cure was very good to me. ' Courage, 
my poor girl,' he said ; and he made a qmte of 
four francs for me. That was one day when I 
had nothing in the house." 

Catharine shivered as she listened to the sad 
old voice complaining of the troubles of by-gone 
years. She began to long to get away — to be 
at home. The place seemed unutterably sad. 
The baby was asleep by this time. She listened 
to the sound of the rain pattering without, of 
the fire blazing fitfully, of the wheel turning. 
The elder children had begun a little game with 
a broom in a corner, and were laughing over it. 
Old Nanon span on. "Ah! what trouble I 
have had !" she was mumbling. " My ' petiot,' 
he was only ten— so gentle, so obedient. Listen, 
that I may tell you. He went out with his 
father and his elder brother, and about the time 
I was expecting them I went into a neighbor's 
house, and she said, 'My poor Nanon, will you 
spin two pounds of flax ?' But I said, ' No, I had 
to repair the " camiche" of my husband. He 



would want a diy one when he came home ; 
and I was arranging a pretty little pair of sabots 
for my petiot.' This is wliat Marion said to 
me : ' Perhaps he may never want them, my 
poor Nanon.' And then I looked up, and I saw 
that more people had come in. ' Qui se mou- 
chiaient,' said the old woman, in her Norman 
patois. And I said, ' Listen to me, Marion ; I 
like best to know the worst. I have lost my 
husband ?' Ah ! madame, it was not my hus- 
band then ; my husband had come safe to 
shore : the men of St. Laurent had saved him. 
But my petiot ; he was holding on to his father 
in the water, and the cravate give way. Ah ! 
I have had misfortune in my time." . . . And 
old Nanon went on spinning. 

It was just then that the door opened, and 
the cure of the village came in. Catharine 
started up, holding the baby to her, and gave a 
little cry. She seemed to guess instinctively 
that sorrow was at hand. The cure advanced 
to meet her with a face full of compassion. 

"My poor child," he said, "come home. I 
have come to fetch you home. There has been 
an accident." 

Catharine said nothing; she put the child 
quickly down and pulled the shawl over her 
head as they hurried through the wet street in 
the storm of sleet and wind. It seemed to 
Madame Fontaine that one or two people came 
to their doors and looked at them, but she was 
not sure ; she did not dare to ask what had 
happened ; she knew without being; told, some- 
how. The cure' was holding her hand and hur- 
rying her along through the rain. As they 
came out upon the ascent leading to the chalet, 
Catharine saw a crowd of people down below 
upon the shingle, and some peojjle standing in 
the little garden in front. " They have got him 
home," the cure' said. "Let us hurry, my poor 
child ; there is no time to lose." 

Catharine gave a cry, and put her hand to 
her head, and began running through the rain. 
The people at her door made way for her; but 
no haste she could have made would have been 
of any avail. 

The two young men had come upon the 
beach just as the other boats had been hauled 
up safe and dry ; the men were waiting to give 
a helping hand to the poor Lefebvres,»whose 
boat — La Bdle Marion — had just appeared 
through the mist. It was endeavoring to round 
a little promontory which jutted out into the 
sea beyond the terrace of the chalet, and which, 
with the rocks at the other extremity of the 
village, helped to form a small harbor for the 
fishing-boats. The name of the place came 
from this little natural port. There were some 
sunk rocks round the promontory against which 
the water dashed fiercely at all times. To-day 
the whole horizon was upheaving and tossing in 
the twilight. There was one faint gleam in the 
west where the black waves were tumbling, and 
where clouds seemed to be shifting and tearing 
behind the mist, while below the terrible flush- 
ing sea was sobbing in passionate fury. Each 



94 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



time the boat attempted to weather the point 
round which it had to pass before making for 
the shore, the shrieking wind and the great 
throbbing flood tide drove it back again and 
again ; once a great wave came rolling from 
afar, gathering strength as it approached, and 
completely covered the poor little laboring bark. 

There was a cry of terror from the poor 
women looking on, but the water rolled away, 
and the three sailors were still there, fighting 
for their lives upon tliis terrible battle-field. 
Two or three of the people upon the beach 
hurried to the little promontory of which men- 
tion has been made. There was only standing- 
place for two or three. Dick and Fontaine 
were among the number. Fontaine was very 
much excited ; he gesticulated vehemently, and 
with the others shouted to the men ; but the 
wind carried their voices away. The storm was 
at its height. The white horses were dashing 
against the embankment at the extremity of the 
maire's little garden, and the spray came wash- 
ing over the promontory. The wind shrieked 
like u human voice. The poor little boat 
seemed doomed ; in its eiforts to get under 
shelter it came too near the wind, and once 
again entirely disappeared. It was like a 
miracle to the lookers-on, standing helpless on 
the beach, to see that when it emerged a second 
time, bottom upward, from the water, the three 
men Avere clinging to it still ; but it only rose 
to be drifted rapidly past into the mist by the 
furious tide from the shore. It passed only 
some twenty yards from the sand-bank upon 
which they were standing — Fontaine and Dick, 
and the two other men. 

"Good heavens! one of them is gone," said 
Dick, beginning, by a sort of instinct, to fasten 
a rope round his waist. 

Fontaine pointing to an object floating upon 
a wave. "Look," said he, "what is that?" 
and as he spoke, in his excitement, he seized a 
rope, and dashed into the water before any one 
could prevent him. Poor fellow, it was only a 
barrel, and as he caught at it it slipped from 
his grasp. There came a shriek from the wind, 
:uid a sudden squall of rain, and the rope came 
slack into the hand of the man who held it. 
" He has let go the rope," said one of the men, 
horrified, and then, somehow, it was Dick, in 
his turn, who was struggling in the sea. 

It was a strange and awful moment as he rose 
upon the great roaring wave which caught him 
off his feet. The sky seemed to fall to meet 
him, his heart stood still, chill mountains were 
rising and falling. At first he was quite con- 
scious ; he could even notice a long string of 
black sea-weed pass before his face. Suddenly, 
sooner than he had expected, he seemed flung 
with a dash against some floating substance, 
which he clutched ; the water closed over his 
head ; and then they began to pull the rope in 
from the shore. He scarcely knew what he was 
grasping ; his senses seemed to fail ; stunned 
and bewildered, he struggled through the terrible 
valley of the shadow of death. When he came 



to himself he was lying on the shingle, some I 
one was pouring brandy down his throat, and 1 

some one else was rubbing his hands. 

Richard sat up, bewildered. They had car- 
ried him far away to a sheltered place, where they 
were less exposed to the storm ; the sea was 
roaring still, but the fury of the wind had aba- 
ted. As he looked, he saw that some peofile 
were carrying away the lifeless form of a man 
upon their slioulders ; a women with fluttering 
garments, and a child, sobbing in piteous tones, 
were trudging alongside. 

"Thank God!" said Madame de Tracy, 
flinging her ai-ms round Dick's neck, while Jean 
nodded and put up his brandy-flask. 

"You must take him home in the c.irriiige, 
mamma," said Tracy ; "and now I will go and 
see how it fares with my poor Fontaine." 

How it fared ! He lay quite still upon his 
bed, with Toto still sobbing and holding his 
hand, and the old Merards coming and going 
with scared white faces, and with remedies that 
were not Avanted now, for he would suffer no 
more. Some terrible blow in the water had 
stunned him to death. It was no living man 
that poor Dick had brought to shore. Poor 
Fontaine had been dashed by the storm against 
the baiTcl or some sunken rock. 

Dear simple heart ! So foolish, so absurd, 
so confident, so tender and thoughiful for 
others! "He could swim like a fish," he had 
said, to some one. "It was not for him to re- 
main behind when others were going to their 
deaths." Ridicule is hushed, the humble are 
crowned with good things when the solemn 
wave which cast Fontaine upon the unknown 
shore comes for each in turn. Some of those 
who had laughed at his odd, kindly ways were 
waiting outside in the rain with eyes full of 
tears ; some who had prayed more fervently', 
felt more deeply, perhaps realized the solemn 
mysteries of life and death more vividly, than 
this simple soul, were awe-stricken and .'^ilent as 
they thought of him now, for he was wiser than 
they. Love thy neighbor as thyself is tlie divine 
law of life, and if ever man fulfilled it cheerfully, 
nnpi-etendingly, it was Fontaine. He had done 
his task gajly, kindly, ungrudgingly ; he had 
gone his way, and died in harness. 

Madame de Tracy awoke from troubled sleep 
in great agitation and depression on the morn- 
ing after the storm. She could not rest : her 
nerves had been greatly shaken by the terrible 
cnlamity of the day before, by the sight of the 
poor little widow's terror and anguish. The 
good chatelaine longed to be of use to her, but 
Catharine had begged her to go, to leave her 
alone. 

Poor lady ! all night long she had wonder- 
ed, reproached herself, sorrowed for her friend, 
trembled, and reproached herself again. Ma- 
dame de Tracy rose at last from her uneasy bed, 
where the little sharp points of conscience were 
piercing the down and the elastic mattresses; 
she went to one of the windows, and opened it, 
and looked out. From this window she could 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



95 



see the chalet far away, and a bit of the sea 
and of the beach, upon which a light was 
burning, and she saw that the shingle was 
quite black with the sea -weed which the 
night's storm had cast up. The chalet looked 
very still ; no one seemed moving ; but pres- 



white cap-strings flying, as if it had been five 
o'clock in the afternoon instead of in the morn- 
ing. "Barbe, go to Mr. Richard's door and 
ask him how he feels." 

"Madame, he is asleep," said Barbe; "his 
door was open as I passed. " / 







ently from one of its upper windows there came 
a light. 

Madame de Tracy looked at it with a pain 
aching and tugging at her kind old heart ; she 
waited for a while, and then rang for Barbe, who 
appeared presently, bright and smiling, with 



"Asleep ! ah ! perhaps it is the best thing for 
him. Tell me, is any one stirring in the house ?" 

" I think, madame, that M. Le Comte is ris- 
ing." 

"Barbe! go and knock gently at his door. 
Ah ! no ; prepare my dressing things and a 



96 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



small cup of coffee, and one also for yourself. I 
want you to come with me to the chalet. I 
must go and see after that poor child. Ah ! 
what a terrible scene ! I little thought when 
they sent for me ..." 

When Barbe and her mistress reached the 
village it was all alive with early voices. The 
morning after the storm had broken with bril- 
liant sunshine, although great mountains of 
clouds still hung mid-air. The doors were 
open, the people busily coming and going, the 
children half-dressed were peeping, the early 
plants in the gardens were bathed in brightness. 
Even Madame Potier was at her unopened shop. 
She stared at Madame de Tracy, who, for the 
first time for many years, appeared in public 
without her frizzy curls. 

"You have heard the news, madame?" she 
cried. " They came back in the night. They 
managed to get on shore at St. Laurent ! It is 
a miracle." From the steep ascent to the cha- 
let Madame de Tracy could see the figures 
crowding down below like ants, to clear away 
the great piles of black sea-weed, and gather the 
harvest which the storm had cast up upon the 
shore. Nan on had her holte full of the long 
hanging fringes : carts heaped with the flutter- 
ing ribbons slowly rolled away. Poor Catharine, 
too, saw the sight, looking out at early dawn, 
and languidly wondering what the bright lights 
moving here and there upon the beach could 
mean. Were they watching as she was? It 
seemed to her like a great pall cast up out of 
the sea, and she turned away with a sickening 
pang and a groan. She was afraid she had 
awakened Toto, who was lying asleep in a great 
chair, but the poor child only stirred uneasily, 
and breathed gently to sleep again. 

About midday the storm came on again with 
so much fury that they were obliged to close the 
shutters of the chalet, and burn candles all day 
long. 

On the third day it abated, and poor Fontaine 
was laid in his grave. 

Once after the funeral Catharine saw the 
little feather brush which had vexed her so 
often lying on a table. She caught it up, the 
poor little widow, in her long black dress, and 
covered it with kisses and tears. Tears of such 
tender love, and longing, and remorse ; no hero 
of romance, no knight dying in tournament, 
could have inspired truer and more tender sor- 
row. 

On the third day after the storm Eeine came 
walking quietly across the fields from the station, 
wrapping lier cloak round about her, for the 
evening was chill. Every thing looked dusky, 
silent ; low pale lights were shining through the 
broken heaps of cloud that were, at last, dis- 
persing in the west. The salt pool under the 
dark bushes at the end of tlie road was gleaming 
with these pale lights. The horses in the fields 
were moving here and there, scarcely distin- 
guishable in the darkness. Just over the farm, 
where the clouds had not yet risen, a little bit 
of red moon was hanging. The lights were 



' pale chilly gold ; but some deep shadows were 
heaping against the faint background. The 
windows of the farm were lighted up warmly, 
and looked home-like and welcoming to the 
young mistress of the house as she reached the 
great arch and went in. 

She thought her own home had never looked 
so home-like, with its friendly seamed face, and 
quaint yet familiar aspect. She had a feeling 
as of a living friend or spirit of the hearth wel- 
coming her, and inclosing her within open arms. 
She was glad to come back to liberty, to daily 
work — glad to meet her grandfather — glad to 
meet Dick once more. But something — a pre- 
sentiment, perhaps, growing out of the feelings 
of the last few days — seemed to mix witli the 
happiness which she felt. It was like a little bit- 
ter taste, a little passing fear — like a small cloud 
no bigger than a man's hand rising out of the 
horizon. 

We all know how strangely, as we travel on 
in life, we suddenly reach new countries, states 
of mind, and of being, undreamt of, or at least 
unrealized by us. Those terrible phantoms of 
our youth — the selves to be of the future — come 
silently upon us before we are aware. They 
come vigorously at first, impatiently, with quick 
blood flowing. Then more indifterent. Then 
middle-aged, careworn, lean and slippered fig- 
iires, advancing quietly out of the unknown, 
whispering secrets to us which we have not 
suspected, telling us truths that we sometimes 
hate to hear, sometimes thank heaven with un- 
speakable relief for knowing at last. There had 
been a strange revelation to Reine in that sud- 
den withdrawing of the curtain of the chapel. 
She had seen, as it were, the thoughts, the un- 
expressed anxieties of her secret heart, in flesh 
and blood, there actually represented before her. 
The sight might have meant nothing if it had 
not been for the feelings which had preceded it : 
Dick at his ease among those rustling silks and 
furs ; Catharine there, and, as it were, one of 
them. What had Reine in common with it all ? 
Nothing — ah ! nothing but her great love. So 
great it was that she sometimes felt alone in it : 
her love, which was as a pain and a burden to 
her, for she could not express it. It was scarce- 
ly a part of herself, she thought sometimes. It 
seemed to her like something from without, 
bearing down upon her from a great distance. 
She could only ofter it up with terror and awe, 
in solemn sacrifice to an unknown God. Alas \ 
poor woman, these great silent emotions are not 
the offerings which are accepted most Avillingly 
in this good-humored world. Thousands of 
little affectionate fires are burning on our neat- 
ly-blackened hearths, in our kitchens, in our hos- 
pitals and refuges. We deal out our fuel in 
scnttlefuls, and put in a few sticks of sentiment 
if the flame is very low ; but I think Reine 
would have lighted a great pile, if she could 
have heaped upon it all the most worthy and 
valuable things ; flung into it all the rich flowers, 
sweet fruit, and a few bitter herbs and incense, 
set fire to it all, and walked herself into the 



i 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



97 



flames had she seen the occasion. Eeine, with 
all her defects and her tenderness, her jealousy, 
her fidelity, her passionate emotions, her angry, 
rough words, could speak of the small passing 
feelings of an instant ; but it was so hard to her 
to put words to the great harmonious discords 
of her secret heart that she rarely tried to do so. 
It was in the look of her eyes, the flush of her 
face, its sometimes tender brilliance of anger 
and sweetness, that Richard Butler could read 
her heart. 

Although Reine was old for her years in feel- 
ing, she was young in tlie knowledge of the 
world, and many a child of thirteen is wiser 
than she was then. It is only as women grow 
older and know more of life that they escape 
from the Rhadamanthine adoration which haunts 
their inexperience. They find out later how 
fallible all human judgments are — how unsatis- 
factory and incomplete — and they discover, when 
it 13 too late sometimes, that the tall superior 
beings who are to take the calm direction of 
their poor little flustered souls are myths and 
impossibilities. 

Poor Reine's ideal had appeared to her 
tln-ough the bars in company with two rustling 
ladies of another country, and class, and religion 
to her own. Little combinations which at one 
time and to some people seem utterly shifting 
and unmeaning, to others are arrested forever 
in their minds. A certain set of emotions have 
been silently leading up to this particular in- 
stant, and date from it ever after. The girl 
walked across the court with the li.eavy, deliber- 
ate footstep of the Chre'tiens. The ladies of 
the d'Argouges family, her mother's ancestors, 
had not been in the habit of wearing such heavy 
- leather shoes ; but one of them, Jeanne d'Argou- 
ges, had once been painted in a peasant dress 
with the same old golden crucifix hanging round 
her neck that Reine now wore. She used to be 
called "La Fe'e,"and the girl had often heard 
her mother tell the story of her sad end, and 
how she died of a cruel word. Reine was like 
tlie picture, poor Madame Chretien thought, 
and she had been used to laugh and say tliat 
perhaps her daughter's beauty came to her from 
the drop of fairy blood in her veins. 

As she came in, Petitpere, who was sitting 
by the fire, looked up and smiled at her, and 
knocked the a^hes out of his pipe. 



CHAPTER XX. 

NEVER, NEVER. 

Petitpere looked up and smiled, and shook 
his head a moment after, as he began the recital 
of all that had befallen them since Reine had 
been away. It was too true that sad and terri- 
ble things had happened, and yet tobacco and 
gossip were not the less sweet because storms 
liad raged and misfortunes thickened ; and the 
old fellow pufi"ed liis pipe, and leisurely recount- 
ed his story. "He ! poor boy, who would have 
thought it?" said old Chre'tien, as he finished 
G 



the little tragedy. " He ought to be alive at 
this moment, and there he was ijr the cime- 
tiere, while two old fellows were still in their 
sabots." Strangely enough, poor Fontaine had 
signed his will that very morning, in the pres- 
ence of M. le Cure' and his gardener, so Bar- 
beau reported. It was not known for certain, 
but it was said that he had left every thing to 
his widow for her life, and appointed her sole 
guardian to his boy. Poor little woman ! it was 
a rude shock for her. People talked of her re- 
turn to England. Then Pere Chre'tien went on 
to other things : The white cow was ill : it had 
been hurt in the nostril ; Barbeau had exam- 
ined the wound ; he thought badly of it ; and, 
by the way, what was the matter with Madame 
la Comtesse? She had been up at the farm 
asking all manner of questions, ferreting here 
and every where. "She didn't discover much," 
said old Chre'tien, with a chuckle ; " but take 
care, my girl : she looked malicious ; I could see 
it plain enough." Barbeau, too, had comment- 
ed upon the circumstance, "They don't like 
the Englishman to come too often, that is not 
hard to divine. Only this morning I had to 
send him oft' very short," said Petitpere, com- 
placently. That sort of person it comes, and 
goes, and amuses itself, and thinks itself of con- 
sequence. He might have broken his head in 
the sea in the place of poor Fontaine for all he 
cared. " Voila," the old fellow concluded phil- 
osophically, ' ' Barbeau says there is no depend- 
ing—" 

"Oh, don't, don't, Petitpere," cried poor 
Reine, flinging herself down upon the oak bench 
against the wall, and beginning to cry. " Poor 
Fontaine, poor friend, poor, poor Catharine! 
Oh, what a sad world! Oh, how bitter was 
life !" she cried, in her pathetic voice, hiding her 
face in her hands, while the sobs came faster and 
faster. "Fontaine dead; that kind creature, 
so alive, so full of gentleness and goodness." 

Poor soul, was it only for Fontaine that she 
was mourning, and did her tears flow for all sad 
hearts, all future troubles, all possible separa- 
tion ? 

She was sitting there still ; the old man had 
put down his pipe, and was patting her on the 
shoulder with his horny old fingers, and doing 
his best to console her. 

"Now then, now then," said he, "you are 
not his widow to give way to desolation like this. 
Hush! there is some one coming. It is perhaps 
Barbeau ..." 

But even the hated name of Barbeau did not 
rouse poor Reine as did the step upon the tiled 
floor of the kitchen, and the i-oiee which gladly 
exclaimed and called her by her name, and then 
the sweet teai^-stained face looked up, and the 
pathetic eyes met Dick's proud glad glance. Fcr 
a minute Reine forgot all her doubts, jealousy, 
hard resolves — forgot eveiy thing but Dick for a 
minute, as he stood before her, holding both her 
hands in liis, and then he spoke. 

"You have been badly wanted, dear Reine. 
I have come for you. I promised that poor lit- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIEF. 



tie woman to bring you back to her. I knew I 
should find you this time . . ." 

Why did he S])eak ? Ah ! why, if this was 
all he "had to say? The tender heart seemed 
suddenly to grow hard and rough, the light died 
out of the wistful eyes. Why did he speak, if 
liis first words were to he of Catharine ? It was 
in vain that the girl tried to hush the devilish 
voice, the hateful thought away. Reine stood, 
with dry eyes and a pale face, glancing from 
Dick(rf;o Petitpere, who was once again sitting 
doubled up over the fire, shaking his head doubt- 
fully to himself every now and then. 

" Could you come now?" Dick persisted. 
" Not to-night, sir," interrupted old Chre'tien, 
without looking round. "Reine is tired, a-nd 
has come from far. To-morrow she will visit 
the poor lady." 

"Where is she ?" Eeine asked, in an odd, in- 
diiFerent voice, beginning to tie on her cloak. 
Petitpei-e shrugged his shoulders. In a minute 
more Reine and 'Butler were crossing the dark 
court-yard together. 

"I shall send Dominique after you with the 
cart," cried Petitpere, coming to the door. 
"Reine, you would have done better to stay." 

They came out into the wide open plain. 
There were rolling mists, clouds, sudden winds ; 
darkness was descending like a veil. The two 
went side by side through wreathing vapors; 
they scarcely broke the silence. For a minute 
Petitpere watched their dusky figures, which 
were hardly perceptible as they crossed the road 
and struck across the fields. Reine, walking 
along beside her lover, tried to put away all 
thought that was not of the present — of a pres- 
ent that to others might seem dark, and doubt- 
ful, and chill, and yet which to them both was 
vibrating with an unconscious and unspeakable 
delight, for were they not walking together 
through the darkness, and yet, at tlie same time, 
thoy were both doubting whether it was a reality 
that made them happy, or only a semblance of 
what might have been true once. 

Alas ! Reine was not strong enough to forbid 
sad thoughts of the future to come between 
them. She was so strange, so reserved, at once 
so agitated and so unmoved, that Butler, who 
had been looking forward all through his long 
sick watch to this happy meeting, was disap- 
pointed, wounded, and pained. When Catha- 
rine had sent for him, and begged him to bring 
her friend, it was not of this Reine he had been 
thinking, but of another, tender and full of sym- 
pathy. This was so sad and so cold that she 
seemed to freeze him over and sadden him, and 
all the while the poor soul was acliing and sick- 
ening for the loving words, the tender reassur- 
ances she had waited and hoped to hear. It 
was in vain Dick tried to extort the sympathy 
from her he wanted. She would not, could not 
respond. Reine was for the moment wondering 
wlio might be most to be pitied if^if — She 
interrupted liim once when he was speaking of 
Catharine. 

"Do vou know that Madame de Tracv was 



up at the farm yesterday ? She asked my grand- 
father a great many questions. Can she sus- 
pect the truth ? Can Madame Fontaine have 
told her ..." 

" I am sure she guesses the real state of the 
case," Dick said;"but Catharine Fontaine has 
not told lier. Poor little woman ! she has oth- 
er things to think of just now." 
" Is she very unhappy ?" 
"How can you ask ? Should not you be un- 
happy if I had been drowned instead of Fon- 
taine?" 

The girl shivered, and then suddenly, with a 
passionate movement, drew her hand from his 
arm, and almost pushed him away. 

" I am not married to you," she said, bitterly 
and furiously; "perhaps if I were only your 
widow, I could bear to part from you. Widows 
recover and marry again . . ." 

" Hush, Reine !" said Dick, angrily. 
"Why do you mind my saying this?" per- 
sisted the girl, in her rough, grating voice. 

' ' Because it is not like you to show no sym- 
pathy for some one in great sorrow. I think 
you must be already sorry for what you have 
said," the young man answered, gravely. 

The girl did not speak, except, indeed, by a 
strange and wistful look, and walked on by bis 
side in silence. 

I have no excuse to make for Reine Chre'tien, 
nor do I want to make one for her. With all 
her faults, her pride, her waywardness, there 
was a noble truth and devotion in her nature 
that spoke for itself, and forced you to forgive, 
even while you were vexed still and angry. The 
two walked on for a long way. For once evil 
and good were urging lier in the same direction. 
Her jealousy was helping her to fulfill what she 
had grown to look upon as a duty. 

Ah me ! how often it happens in life that the 
generous self, the passionate great heart, uncon- 
scious, or perliaps ashamed of its own tenderness 
and nobility, takes, in self-defense, small means 
to accomplish great ends. Reine was one of 
those who would swallow a camel and strain at 
a gnat. We liave all of us been blinded and 
ungrateful in our life, at one time or another, 
unconsciously accepting together the great sae- 
rifice and the small one, grudgingly granted ; we 
have all complained, perhaps, of the vexing 
word, the passing caprice of a moment, uncon- 
scious, ah ! forever unconscious of the whole 
world, of love, of sacrifice, of utter devotion, 
which was ours just then to forget, to ignore, to 
accept without thanks, to abandon, if we could. 
They had reached the gate of the chalet by 
this time ; the moonlight seemed to be stream- 
ing every where. 

"Oh, Richard, Richard, do you mean to tell 
me you do not know that she has always loved 
you?" cried Reine, with a sudden burst, and 
then with a scared sort of look, and she broke 
away from him, and pushed at the door of the 
house, and went in. 

The poor little chalet, with all its absurd or- 
namentations, and whirling flags and wcatlier- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



99 



cocks, looked so sad and forlorn, so black and 
hearse-like in the darkness. The blinds of some 
of the windows were down ; a pale light shone 
in Catharine's window. Dick, pacing up and 
down outside in the moonlight, looked up at it 
more tlian once, and laughed a little bitterly to 
himself over the perversity of women. He did 
not like Reine the better for her jealousy. It 
was not worthy of her, he thought. The iiouse 
was very dark and silent within and without. 
Monsieur and Madame Merard had gone away 
for a few days ; Madame Binaud had come for 
them, and Catliarine had piteously begged them 
to go — to leave her with Toto. She was only 
longing for silence and rest. 

Poor old Me'rard's little piping voice quaver- 
ed when he came to say good-by, and his jolly 
face seemed circled witli dark round wrinkles 
which had not been there before. "Pauvre 
petite," said he, kissing the two little cold cling- 
ing hands which he held in his. Madame Me'- 
rard, too, seemed changed and greatly shaken. 
She said little, but trotted about, overturning 
drawers, and keeping vigilant watch over the 
goings-on in the house. Just before starting 
she carried up a cup of strong broth to Catha- 
rine, which she had made with her own hands. 
" Drink it down hot," said she. "There is a 
good pound of meat in it, for I arranged it my- 
self." 

Dick would not have thought Reine hard or 
perverse could he have seen into the room from 
where the fiint ray of liglit was streaming, and 
where poor little Catharine was sitting on a 
low chair by the smouldering fire, while Reine 
knelt beside her, holding her hand in a tender 
clasp. Reine had that strange gift of healing 
and comfort which some people possess; there 
was strength and peace in the touch of her strong 
gentle hands, and in the wise, wistful look of her 
eyes. Catharine spoke a few broken words tell- 
ing her how it had happened, speaking of Dick's 
courage and devotion. Reine listened, gazing 
into the fire, keeping time with her heart to 
Richard's footsteps outside. It was long before 
she listened to them again ; the clock ticked 
monotonously, and time went on. 

And then they heard a voice speaking down 
below. " Justine, do not let Mademoiselle 
Chre'tien go without seeing me," said somebody. 

"It is Madame de Tracy," said Catharine, 
languidly. " She has been here all day." 

It was Madame de Tracy's voice ; it was 
Madame de Tracy herself who stood waiting in 
ambush in the kitchen, waiting in agitation, pal- 
pitation, and excitement, expecting her prey, 
not without some alarm, poor lady ; for her own 
claws were not very fierce, nor her bites very fa- 
tal, and, dragon though she was, she would have 
liked to run away. Justine the cynical saw 
that something was going on. It did not con- 
cern her ; she only shrugged her shoulders as 
she plodded about the house from one creaking 
wooden room to another. She was putting 
away the linen in the maire's little offlce, which 
was now, at last, disponible. It was convenient 



and near the kitchen ; she had always wanted a 
place for her table-cloths. Coming down stairs 
with an arm full of linen, she met Reine leaving 
Catharine's room. "You are wanted in the 
kitchen," said she. " IMadame do Tracy cer- 
tainly will not let you go without seeing her." 
And as slie spoke, Madame de Tracy, with her 
bonnet all on one side, came out at the sound 
of the voices, and held open the door with much 
difficult}'. 

"I have to speak to you; come in here, if 
you please. My nephew is outside, but it is to 
you, mademoiselle, I address myself. He is 
waiting for you — do not deny it; I know all — 
every thing." And the countess blazed round 
upon the peasant girl, who, however, seemed but 
little discomposed by the attack. "Ah! made- 
moiselle," continued Madame de Tracy, sudden- 
ly changing from ferocity to supplication, "if 
you do really care for that foolish, impetuous 
boy, yon will forgive me and sympathize with 
me when I implore you to reflect upon the sac- 
rifice he is making — a sacrifice that will disgrace 
him, and drag him down in the eyes of the 
world. It is so hard in its judgments. Is that 
door securely closed ? I would not for the 
world that Justine should overhear, that Dick 
should suspect me of influencing you. He was 
furious once not long ago, when I foolishly 
dreaded another attraction, but this would be 
still less . . . still more — Catharine at least 
was . . ." The poor lady stopped short, em- 
barrassed, unable to finish her sentence ; well 
she might be, for she caught sight of Reine's in- 
dignant cheeks burning, and of the much-dread- 
ed Dick himself coming in through the glass 
door. A chill night-wind surged in as he open- 
ed the door, of which the shutters had not yet 
been closed. He had been quietly walking out- 
side up and down, biding his time. It had 
come now ; and now Dick guessed in an instant 
what had happened ; he went straight up to 
Reine, and put his arm round her, as if to de- 
fend her, and yet Reine was strong enough to 
defy the poor trembling, agitated lady without 
his assistance. 

"You mustn't say any thing to Reine, Aunt 
IMatilda, that you wouldn't say to me," said 
Dick, haughtily. 

"Dear boy," cried Madame de Tracy, more 
and more fluttered and anxious, " indeed, and 
indeed, I only speak for your good and hers. 
Of course you have passed your word, but yon 
do not know the world as I do, nor to what you 
are exposing . . . you — you . . ." 

"Hush!" said Dick, speaking savagely, al- 
most for the first time in his life. " Reine and 
I understand one another very well, and arc 
quite willing to put up with any inconvenience," 
and his voice softened: he looked at the girl 
with a smile. But she did not answer ; she was 
quite pale, and her eyes were on fire ; she drew 
herself up to her full length, and stood there in 
the moonlight in her country dress, looking like 
a wraith ; even her words sounded faint and 
toneless. 



100 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIEE. 



"Heaven knows," she said, quietly, "that I 
am ready to die for you, Eichard, but I will nev- 
er marry you^never, never. It is not for the 
first time that I hear tliesc things, that I reflect 
upon the sacrifice you make, upon the danger 
of marriage ill assorted and unhappy. Nothing 
will ever change my affection ; you are part of 
my life, of my prayers, ever since I first knew 
you . . ." The passionate cadence of lier voice 
broke into a sob. Heine spoke with emotion, 
feeling that she was safe in ]Madame de Tracy's 
agitated presence ; she imagined Richard would 
say nothing, do nothing, but somehow she was 
mistaken, and she found herself folded iu the 
young man's arms. 

"My Reine," he said, "I want no words — I 
understand." But the girl put herself quickly 
away out of his embrace. What strange love- 
parting v.-as this in the sad house of mourning. 

" You do not understand me," cried Reine ; 
"and you, madame, need not be so much afraid 
of the harm I shall do him," she said, passion- 
ately, turning to Madame de Tracy. "I shall 
not drag him down ; I shall not force him to 
keep his word ; I shall not disgrace him !" 

The girl's anger and sorrow had gradually 
reached a hysterical and almost uncontrollable 
point. The things Madame de Tracy had glibly 
explained, meaning no harm, poor lady ! had 
nearly maddened her. Her allusion to Catha- 
rine was the last drop in the brimming cup. In 
vain Dick tried to calm and to soothe her. She 
did not listen ; she would not look at him even ; 
for a minute she stared through the glass door 
into the moonlight without, and then at Ma- 
dame de Tracy, agitated and fleckered by the 
blaze of the fire. 

"Catharine, of whom you spoke just now," 
cried the girl, "would have been a thousand 
thousand times more suited than I should ever 
be. Ah ! do not interfere again, madame. 
You do not know what you are doing!" and 
with a scared sort of look Reine broke away 
from Dick, and pushed at the glass door, and 
ran out into the night. She had forgotten all 
about it, but she found Dominique, with the cart, 
waiting at the garden gate. Dick, following an 
instant after only, came in time to see her drive 
away. 

I think, if he had caught her then, if he had 
scolded, and then forgiven her, all would have 
been right between them then ; but the horse 
set off at a trot down the hill ; the cart rolled 
away with a dull jolt of wheels over the sodden 
earth ; mists came between them, and distance 
greater and greater. Butler was too angry and 
hurt to follow her at the time — more angry, I 
tliink, because she went oft' in the cart than for 
all she had said to vex liim. 

"Never — never." Did some one whisper it 
in his ear ? What a strange creature — lovely, 
womanly, tender, and pathetic, and furious ; how 
hard to satisfy, how difficult to love, how impos- 
sible not to love. 

Dick spent a sulky evening at the chateau, 
smoking by himself in the smoking-room, wliile 



Madame de Tracy retired with fluttering digni- 
ty to her own apartment. Jean thought it a 
bad business ; but it was his maxim not to in- 
terfere. It was no afiair of his. Dick was old 
enough to attend to his own concerns; and 
though Mrs. Beamish and Ernestine went doivn 
upon their knees to him, they could not undo 
the past, or prevent him from thinking that there 
was but one woman in the world, and her name 
was Reine Clire'tien. 

Dick made up his mind very quietly without 
asking any one's leave. He was a little touch- 
ed, and very much provoked, by the allusions to 
poor Madame Fontaine ; but he hoped there 
was some mistake, and rather avoided dwelling 
upon that part of the subject. Reine had been 
jealous, as women are sometimes. He walked 
up to the farm before breakfast. The fine weath- 
er had come at last ; fields and furrows were 
twinkling with early dew; a thousand lights, 
and crystals, and refiactions were shining out 
of tlie earth ; a cheerful sound of labor echoed 
under the dazzling morning vault. Old Chre'- 
tien was sitting on the bench sunning himself 
outside the great archway in his blue smock ; 
the queer old pinnacles, and chimney-stacks, 
and pigeon-cotes were all distinct against the 
clear heaven, and the two tall poplar-trees on 
the roadside showed every twig and spray full 
with the coming leaves. Paris came to meet 
Dick, shaking his lazy long body and wagging 
his tail. Retitpere sat staring at the field where 
his men were busy digging up vegetables and 
loading a cart. 

" Good - morning," cried Dick, cheerfully. 
"Monsieur Chre'tien, where shall I find jour 
granddaughter ?" 

"That is more than I can tell you," said the 
old fellow, looking utterly vacant and stupid. 
"Reine is gone, and I am busy enough in her 
absence. As monsieur sees, I am getting in my 
turnips ;" and he pointed to the field where they 
were growing, and where the laborers were busy 
digging up the earth. It was the field which 
the lovers had crossed in the darkness the night 
before. 

"Gone," said Dick, looking at the turnips, 
without seeing any thing before him. 

" She is gone back to the convent," the old 
man said. "I should not like it for myself, 
but she finds her pleasure there." 

"Did she leave no letter — no message for 
me?" Ricliard asked, trying to light a cigar, 
though his fingers were trembling as he did so. 
Petitpere gazed stupidly at the young man. 

" I was to let her know as soon as you were 
gone, that she might come back and see to tlie 
fatting of the pigs," said he; "that was what 
she said." 

With a sudden movement, Dick threw the 
unlighted cigar away over the hedge. 

" She need not delay her return on my ac- 
count," said Butler, flushing up, and turning his 
back to Petitpere. "I shall leave the place to- 
day for good. Pray tell her so when she comes 
back to — to her pigs." 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



101 



Old Petitpere shrugged his shoulders for the 
last time in this little history, and rubbed his 
old knees, pleased with the efFect of that part- 
ing shaft ; and jet he was a little sorry, too, for 
the young fellow, as he went swinging angrily 
along the road, and disappeared at the turn by 
the willow-trees. 

Dick was far away, safe among the green pas- 
tures and cool waters of Lambswold, and Reine 
might have come back from her convent without 
fear of meeting him ; but many and many a day 
went by before the girl returned to the farm- 
kitchen, to her accustomed ways and works, and 
when she came, it was a wan, and weak, and 
weary woman recovering from an illness through 
which the good nuns had nursed her. Poor 
Reine ! she came back to Petitpere, and the pigs, 
and the cows for companionship and sympathy. 
She could not think of the past, it filled her with 
such doubt and remorse ; she did not dare to con- 
template the future, it seemed so endless, so gray, 
so unbearable ; she would not have been sorry to 
die in the convent in the sunny wai-d among the 
tranquil nuns, and so to solve the difficulty and 
riddle of her life. But it was only a low nervous 
fever from which she had suffered, and she knew 
that there was no chance of any end to it but 
that prosaic end of getting well an'd going home 
to her dull and neglected duties. If Catharine 
had been atPetitport she would have found com- 
fort and happiness with the tender little woman ; 
but a chance had happened, which would have 
been stranger if it had happened sooner, and 
Catharine was away in England with her sisters, 
looking after some property which had' come to 
her and to them. What did she want with it 
now? Fontaine had provided for her, and she 
liked better to owe ease and comfort to him, to 
his care and his tender thought for her, than to 
a chance by which Lady Farebrother had died 
before she could sign her name to a will. Mr. 
Bland would have been a good many thousand 
pounds «the richer if the poor lady had lived a 
few hours longer. He never had even the sat- 
isfaction of knowing it ; for, though both the 
doctor and lawyer were sent for, they both came 
too late. As it was, Catharine's two little sisters 
came in for no inconsiderable portion of their 
aunt's possession, and a certain sum was left to 
Catharine, their guardian, by their mother' will. 

It was in autumn, this year, after poor Fon- 
taine's death, that I staid at Petitport, and first 
made Reine Chre'tien's acquaintance on the sea- 
shore, as I described in the beginning of my 
little history. These were not prosperous times. 
There was a gi'eat deal of sickness in the village, 
the harvest had failed, and wherever I went I 
heard complaints, and witnessed pain and sufici- 
ing. Reine seemed to be every where, helping 
and tending her poorer neighbors. It is im- 
possible not to believe that some people Iiavean 
unexplained power, which must be magnetic of 
its kind, for healing and soothing pain. Reine 
possessed this odd influence over the sick, and 
was conscious of it, although she could not ac- 



count for it; she unfortunately had full oppor- 
tunity for exercising her gift. Fever and famine 
were common enough in the poor little village ; 
these two grim visitors were almost as certain 
to come in their season as the bathers and holi- 
day-makers with the summer and sunshine. 
This year fell unusually heavy upon the little 
population ; there was hardly a family that had 
not some member stricken with tlie fever. Reine 
herself lost her grandfather soon before I came 
to the village. For some time she was living by 
herself in a great empty farm-house on a hill. 
When I knew her first she seemed to take to 
me, perhaps because I was English, perhaps be- 
cause I happened to know something of the peo- 
j>le slie most cared for, partly because I was fiis- 
cinated by her. After that day on the sands I 
went up to see her once or twice at the farm. 
A widow woman was living with her, a certain 
Madame Marteau, to whose little daughter she 
was greatly attached. 

Poor Reine ! these were hard times for her. 
On the very day I first made her acquaintance 
she had heard a report from Justine at the cha- 
let concerning Catharine, which had stirred up 
many a feeling still fresh and vivid, though she 
scarcely believed the report. Sometimes she 
spoke of the past, but with evident pain and 
shrinking, and doubt and remorse. Had she 
done right ? Had she done wrong ? She seem- 
ed to be sure of nothing but of the love whicli 
was in her. 

Once, only once, she sat down to write to 
him. She never meant to send the letter, biit 
it was a relief to her to put down upon paper 
all that was in her heart — all her loving re- 
membrance ; to write the words of benediction, 
although he might never need her blessing now. 
When she had written the tender little scrawl, 
she burnt it ; but the words were somewhere, 
ef'cry where, she thought, as she saw the cinders 
float away. She said to herself that no fire 
could burn them out, nothing could destroy 
them ; in some distant world, if not in this one, 
they would find him. 



CHAPTER LAST. 

"tckn, fortune, tuen thy wheel." 

OxE day, Reine, walking down the village 
street, met Madame Merard coming from the 
chalet, where she had been superintending some 
packing and re-ordering. The old lady was 
trotting heavily along, with a large packet on 
her arm. She was panting fiercely, in a state 
of fume and excitement. No w^onder. "She 
had heard an announcement," she said, " which 
she had always predicted — always. What else 
was to be expected of a young woman so en- 
tirely engrossed by society and amusement as 
Madame Fontaine had always shown herself?" 
Madame Me'rard declined to give her authority 
for the news she had heard. "NonI time would 
prove the truth of her assertions. Well-in- 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



formed and dispassionate persons had assured ■ 
her that Catharine Fontaine was on the eve of j 
contracting a second and highly advantageous 
alliance with Mr. Butler. In that event, the 
chalet and all the elegant fittings would return 
to Toto. Most providentially a clause to that 
effect had been inserted in the will, at the cure's 
suggestion ; for the poor infatuated Charles 
would never have shown this necessary previ- 
sion. Poor man, already forgotten ! Ah! how 
differently she, Madame JMerard, had acted un- 
der similar circumstances. Although assidu- 
ously pressed, within six months of her widow- 
hood, to make up her mind, by no less than three 
difierent gentlemen, in no wise connected with 
one another, she had refused to give any answer 
whatever for a space of two whole years, during 
which their attentions had been unremitting. 
At the end of tliat time, having made Monsieur 
Me'rard's acquaintance, she had dismissed the 
other aspirants with every mark of esteem and 
consideration. Nowadays things were different. 
Do not seek for disinterested affection. Oh, 
no," said Madame Merard, "for it would be no 
use." And the old lady stumped away at her 
quickest pace up the road and across the field , 
she had business at the chateau, she vaguely 
intimated, snorting and shaking her head. In 
truth, her authority was only that of Justine 
at the chalet, who had heard the news from 
Baptiste at the chateau, who had it in a letter 
from Barbe, now in England with her mistress; 
and l^Iadame Merard was anxious to gather ev- 
ery particular. 

Poor Heine did not take so much pains to 
verify the news. She had heard some such re- 
port before, that seemed corroborated now. It 
was natural, and only what she had expected all 
along. The blow had fallen at last. Amen. 
She knotted her two hands together, and walk- 
ed along erect and abstracted, with eyes that 
seemed looking at a far-off distance, silent, witli 
a passionate cry in her heart. She walked on 
to the little village grave- jard on the roadside, 
behind the iron railing where her mother was 
lying, and Petitpere resting under the poplar- 
tree, and where, in a sunny corner, Fontaine's 
name was carved upon the stone cross which 
Catharine had put up to his memory, and over 
which the ivy was creeping. 

The struggle which came to Eeine then was 
that sore one which conies to each one of us 
at one time or another ; when passionate hopes 
die away, and longings, how eager none can 
know, except each one for himself; when the 
last hope fails, and when the aching void and 
emptiness of the future seem bearing down like 
the inevitable dusk at the end of a busy day. 
Darkness, and oblivion, and death would seem 
welcome at such times, rather than the dim 
shadow and gray silence of these sad twilight 
hours — dark gray, though the sun is shining, 
perhaps, and the summer lights flooding the 
land. Then the fight begins, a lonely one with 
no witness, for who can see or understand an- 
other's mood? And the fight is this. "I 



wanted that, I tried for this, I would have 
been the person that I am not. I would 
have liked the hajipiness which is denied me. 
Give, give, O Lord, unto thy servant. Is not 
happiness my right ? Is not content my right, 
and success, and love, and prosperity?" And 
even amid the fierce pangs of pain and dis- 
appointment the mad question is answered. 
" Why should not sorrow and disappointment 
be thy right? Why should not the experience 
of grief be thine ; the knowledge of evil as well 
as of good? Submit, oh, submit, poor heart!" 
And the spirit seems to speak to the weary 
body, and one last desperate effort comes for 
resignation, for obedience to the terrible teach- 
ing, for acquiescence. 

We bow to Heaven that willed it so. 

In this frame of mind every thing all round 
about seems to have an answering voice to urge, 
to help, to comfort. When all seems lost, there 
comes a new courage, a new peace dawningover- 
liead, life bursting from the dry branches, light 
from the clouds, the very stones cry out and 
testify in the world all round .-J.bout. Eeine, 
walking-homeward along the cliff, read a thou- 
sand meanings in tlie sights along her way — 
peace, resignation, regret, remembrances more 
or less aching, but singing a song all the while, 
which echoed with hitherto undreamt-of mean- 
ing : there was comfort in the sound of the sea, 
in its flowing music, its minor notes, in the cries 
for help, in the rush of wind blowing here and 
there, in the very moods of her heart, changing 
from one emotion to another. Even tiie trem- 
bling shadow of the poplar-tree upon the tuif 
seemed to whisper peace to her and tranquil- 
lity ; and so, by degrees, her sad excitement 
abated. She did not reproach herself; she did 
not know now whether she had been most to 
blame for that which she should regret all her 
life ; but when she reached home, she felt some- 
how that the worst was ovci'. Little Josette 
ran up to her, and pulled her by the Ij^nd into 
the every-day world again, telling her to come 
and see the galette she and her mother had 
cooked for dinner ; Paris rubbed his head 
against his mistress's black gown ; Madame 
Marteau came smiling to the door to greet her. 

Eeine, coming and going about her business 
with a pale face and a sad heart, all that day 
kept telling herself that it was too late to re- 
gret, but not too late to love still, and then she 
determined to write to Dick once again ; and 
this time the letter was sent. It was ad- 
dressed to Catharine, though it was intended 
for Dick. Only a few words, in the French- 
woman's quaint, stiff handwriting: "I have 
heard news of you," she wrote. "With my 
whole heart I pray heaven for your liajipiness 
— that heart which is full of love for yon, of 
hope for the future, and of faith in your ten- 
der friendship. You will come here some day 
— will you not? — both of you, and give me the 
greatest happiness wliich I can hfipe for on 
earth — the happiness of seeing you hap})y ?" 

And then Eeine, holding Josette by the hand. 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



103 



went and slipped the letter herself into the box 
in the village wall, where it lay until old Pierre, 
the postman, with his clumsy key and his okl 
worn pouch, carried it away to Baye'ux, across 
the plain. 

Dick was sitting with Catharine when this 
letter was put into her hand. She flushed up, 
poor little widow, and began to tremble when 
she read it, and with a sudden movement half 
held it out to Butler, and then changed her mind 
and took it back once more ; and so sat, with- 
out speaking for a minute, with her dark eyes 
fixed gravely upon his face. She looked like a 
child trying to remember some half-forgotten 
lesson, and Dick wondered what words she was 
trying to fasliion. It was a long, low, old- 
fashioned room in which they were sitting— the 
drawing-room of a house on the terrace at Rich- 
mond, with three deepVindows looking out upon 
the loveliest haze and distance upon the river — 
wandering at its own sweet will — upon the 
showers of autumnal gold sparkling beneatli the 
mists that were spreading to the silver hills. 
Toto and Totty were in one of the windows, 
whispering and exploding into sudden shrieks 
of laughter at one another's witticisms. Rosy 
was curled up over a novel on the floor; and 
Catharine, sitting in her little bowery corner, 
with some work and some flowers on her table, 
was looking prettier and more gentle than ever 
in her black dress, with her plaintive childish 
face crowned with the sad dignity of a widow's 
cap. So she sat talking to the melancholy and 
ill-humored young man in the arm-chair beside 
her. "You must find me a great bore," Dick 
was saying; "I come and grumble, and abuse 
every body and every thing. I tried to go back 
to my painting tliis morning— confound it, I can 
do nothing with it ; I can do nothing but grum- 
ble." Dick often rode over to see the little wid- 
ow; he would come in the worst of spirits, and 
go away cheered and touched by Madame Fon- 
taine's constant kindness and sympathj'. The 
little woman had learned out of the depths of her 
own morbid experiences to be tender, and gen- 
tle, and forbearing with others wandering in the 
same dreary labyrinth in which she had been 
utterly lost only a very little while ago ; so it 
seemed to her, looking back. Things were dif- 
ferent now, and Catharine could not help won- 
dering why, sometimes, and feeling that to the 
dearest friend, the tenderest, the most loyal sim- 
ple heart that ever beat, she owed more than she 
could ever pay with a lifetime of love and fidel- 
ity. She did not feel any particular gratitude 
to Lady Farebrother, whose money had contrib- 
uted to the pleasant home and its various luxu- 
ries, and was doing more good now than it had 
ever done in the old lady's lifetime ; but the 
helping hand, the kindness, the protecting love 
which first rescued her was Fontaine's, and 
Catharine did not forget it : one was a chance, 
the other a blessing. Catharine, sitting there 
with Reine's letter in her hand, wondered over 
the many changes and chances of this mortal 



life. She knew well enough by this time that 
poor Madame de Tracy was only eager to re- 
pair the breach between her and her nephew ; 
that Mrs. Butler and Catharine Beamish were 
longing to prevent the possible and horrible mis- 
alliance that was always hanging over the fam- 
ily ; and that they would all have gladly and 
eagerly consented to a marriage between Ma- 
dame Fontaine and this terrible Richard. She 
sadly wonders why she, a widow woman, is 
deemed a fitter wife for Dick now than two years 
ago, when all her heart's best devotion was his. 
Catharine felt she loved him still, as some wom- 
en must love the ideal of their youth — loved him 
with a gentle, true-hearted friendship and faith- 
ful sympathy tliat would be always his ; but not 
as Reine loved him. Ah ! that love was alive, 
and did not die at its birth. As for Dick him- 
self, he made no profession of affection — he was 
sincerely fond of Catharine. He was touched — 
how could he help it ? — by the knowledge of her 
old aftection for him. He came, with a long- 
ing for sympathy, for a kind soul to talk to, from 
his empty, lonely house, to Catharine's tranquil, 
bright home. He came with a sad scorn for 
himself in his heart, but there he was sitting be- 
side her day after day. She suited him better 
than his own relations. Reine, who he thought 
was true as steel, had deceived him and jilted 
him. Catharine had but to put out her hand, 
he was not unwilling ; and Catharine, still look- 
ing him full in the face, put out her hand, but 
Reine's little letter was in it. 

" Oh, Richard," Madame Fontaine said, un- 
consciously calling him by his Christian name, 
"I want you to read this — to forgive me for 
what I am going to say — " 

Her eyes were brimming, her voice was fail- 
ing, but she made a great effort and spoke. 
Just now every tiling seemed of A'cry little con- 
sequence to her in comparison with the great 
sadness which had long filled her heart. There 
was a pathos in her tones of which she was un- 
conscious, as she tried, by talking as straight 
and direct to the point as Reine herself might 
have done, to put away at once, forever, all mis- 
conception. At another time, perhaps, she 
could not have spoken as she did just then. But 
her sorrow still encompassed her like a shield ; 
she was invulnerable; a new strength had come 
to her from her very weakness and remorse for 
the past. 

"I did not love my husband as I ought to 
have loved him when I married him," she said. 
" I deserve any thing— every thing. Even this 
explanation is a punishment for my folly. But 
if I had to live my life again now, and if I might 
choose, with open eyes, between the man who 
loved me and — and — I would not have things 
otherwise. Oh, Richard, you do not think me 
ungrateful for speaking ? I know all that jiass- 
ed. Poor Reine — dear Reine," said the true- 
hearted little woman, "there is no one so noble, 
so faithful. She left you because she loved you. 
Do you know liow ill she has been ? Miss "Wil- 
liamson (it was of the present writer that Cath- 



104 



THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. 



arine was speaking then) has written to me about 
her. She thinks she will die some day if you 
leave her much longer alone. Oh, Richard, dear 
friend, won't you forgive lier and me, and go 
back to her again ? No one has ever loved you 
as she does." 

Those of my good friends who already despise 
Dick Butler, and who think him a poor creature 
at best, and no better than his paintings, will, I 
fear, despise him still more, for his eyes were 
full of tears when he looked up at last from the 
paper on which Kelne's few words of sad con- 
gratulation were standing in black and white be- 
fore him. 

" God bless you, dear lady," he said, taking 
Madame Fontaine's outstretched hand, and start- 
ing up. " You have saved me from committing 
a great wrong. I will write to you to-morrow 
when I have seen her." 

And then he went away quickly, without no- 
ticing the children, and a minute afterward they 
heard his horse's feet clattering down the road. 
Then the three children, who had been listening 
with all tlieir ears, and perfectly understanding 
every thing, and thrilling with sympathy as chil- 
dren do, came and flung themselves upon the lit- 
tlewidow, almostcrushingherdown uponthesofo. 

"No, no, no," said Toto, in his broken En- 
glish, " I shall not 'ave you marry. I want you, 
and when I'm a man . . ." " Oh, CatJij', you 
won't leave us again, will you ? Promise, please 
promise," cried Totty, and Rosa said nothing, 
but threw away her novel, griped one of Cathy's 
poor little hands tight in hers, crushing it with 
all her might, until her sister, half laughing, 
half crying, had to call out for mercy. And so, 
with one last bright appealing look, Catharine 
happily disappears, in the children's adoring but 
somewhat tyrannical embrace. 

Good-by, little Catharine. Yours is no hard 
fiite, after all. Toto is your defender; Rosy 
and Totty your faithful companions; friends, 
and plenty, and peaceful leisure are yours now. 

Courseulles, where the oysters are preserved, 
and where the establishment is situated of which 
poor Fontaine spoke with so much enthusiasm, 
is a dreary little tumble-down village of odds 
and ends ; of broken barrels, torn garments, oys- 
ter-heaps, and swinging shutters, standing upon 
the border of a great mud marsh, which at low 
water reaches out for a mile or more to meet a 
gray and turbid sea. The oysters are sorted 
out in long tanks, according to size, and fatten 
undisturbed, and in their places, round a little 
counting-house which stands in the middle of 
these calm and melancholy waters. The shut- 
ters swing, in the village a cliild or two turns 
over the oyster-heaps, the ragged garments flut- 
ter in the wind. It is not a place likely to at- 
tract mere plea sure- seekers, and yet, as Domi- 
nique, the day after that little conversation at 
Richmond, comes leading the horse out of the 
stable of the inn at Courseulles, he meets a gen- 
tleman who has ridden over from Petitport upon 



M. do Tracy's bay mare, and who quietly asks 
him to see to the horse, and to tell him where 
Mademoiselle Chretien is to be found. 

"Mademoiselle is in the counting-house," 
says Dominique, staring and grinning, and show- 
ing his great red gums ; and Richard, for it is 
Richard of course, makes his way across the 
desolate waste between the inn and the oyster- 
tanks, and opens a gate for himself, and walks 
along a narrow raised pathway leading to the 
little counting-house. 

Before Butler could reach the door it opened, 
and Reine came out and stood for an instant 
looking at the great waste where the dredgers 
were at work, and where a dirty red gleam of 
sunset was glaring upon the mud. She sighed, 
and then she turned suddenly, feeling, as people 
do, that some one was watching her. Some one ! 
Slie turned and looked with a quick, sudden mo- 
tion, and then, although she stood quite still, 
all her heart seemed to go out to welcome the 
one person in the whole world she most wea- 
ried for, and least thought she should see ever 
again. She did not speak, but somehow she 
was in his arms, and her wondering, tender, pas- 
sionate eyes were recounting silently all the 
story of the long sad months through which 
she had wasted ; and as Dick looked at her 
when he saw her sweet face once more, the 
dreary marshes, the falling houses, seemed to be 
touched with some brightest and most sudden 
brilliance. Every thing was plain to them both. 
I don't think they either of them ever knew how 
or in what words the story was told — the best 
and most perfect story which belongs to this 
complaining world — to the world in which there 
are sad histories and wicked ones, in which 
some stories are well forgotten, and others, 
alas! never uttered, but in which the sacred in- 
spiration of love conies now and again to kindle 
cold hearts, to brighten sad lives, to bless and to 
cheer the failing and doubtful, and to tell them 
that a living and sacred power is moving upon 
the troubled waters of life. 

We most of us have seen at one time or an- 
other great rocks jiiled upon rocks, landslips, 
and devastations, blasted trunks of trees sliding 
down the fierce sides of the mountains, the over- 
flow of angry waters, vapor floating mid air in 
the solitude. And Nature, working by some 
great law unknown, and only vaguely appre- 
hended by us insects crawling a little way up 
the sides of her vast chasms, heaps and orders 
in some mighty fashion, and brings about noblest 
harmonies out of chaos. And so, too, out of 
tlie dire dismays and confusions of the secret 
world come results both mighty and gentle : 
great rocks stand shading daisies from tlie mid- 
day heat ; trees uptorn by some avalanche lie 
soft upon lichen and little clinging mosses ; 
there are fissures where the snow lies dazzling; 
and huge stones sliding down the sides of the 
mountain seem arrested by the soft sprays of 
gentle little creeping plants, whose green leaves 
sparkle against the granite. 



FROM AN ISLAND 



FROM AN ISLAND 



The long room was full of people sitting 
quietly in the twilight. Only one lamp was 
burning at tlie far end. The verandah outside 
was dim witli shadow ; between eacli leafy arch 
there glimmered a line of sea and of down. It 
was a gray still evening, sad, with distant storms. 
St. Julian, the master of the house, was sitting 
imder the verandah, smoking, with William, the 
eldest son. The mother and Mrs. William were 
on a sofa together, talking in a low voice over 
one thing and another. Hester was sitting at 
the piano \^fth her bands in her lap, looking 
music, though she was not playing, with her 
white dress quivering in the gloom. Lord 
Ulleskclf. who had come over to see us, was 
talking to Emilia, the married daughter, and to 
Aileen, the youngest of the three ; while I and 
my own little Mona and the little ones were 
playing at the other end of the room at a sort 
of twiliglit game of beating hands and singing 
sing-song nursery rhymes — haymaking, the chil- 
dren called it. 

"Are there any Iettei"s?" said St. Julian, 
looking in at them all from his verandah. " Has 
Emmy got hers ?" 

"I have sent Rogers into Tarmouth to meet 
the post," said the mother; and as she spoke 
the door opened, and the post came in. 

Poor Emmy's face, which had lighted up 
eagerly, fell in an instant : she saw that there 
was no foreign letter for her. 

It was a small mail, not worth sending for, 
Mrs. St. Julian e^/idently thought as she looked 
at her daughter with her kind, anxious eyes. 
" Here is something for you, Emmy, "she said ; 
"for you," Queenie (to me). "My letter is 
from Mr. Hexham ; he is coming to-morrow." 

My letter was from the grocer : — ' 

Mrs. Cajipbell is respectfully informed by 
Mr. Ti/gs that he has sent different samples of 
tea and coffee for her approbation, for the use 
of Mr. St. Julian's houseliold and family: also 
a choice assortment of sperms. Mr. Tiggs re- 
grets extremely that any delay should have 
arisen in the delivery of tlie pi'eserved cherries 
and a])ricots. He forwards the order this day, 
as pet invoice. Mr. T. trusts tliat his unremit- 
ting exertions may meet with Mrs. C.'s approval 
and continued recommendation and patronage. 
Albert Edward House. 

September 21. 



This was not very interesting, except to the 
housekeeper : Mrs. St. Julian had set mo to 
keep house for her down here in the country. 
The children, however, who generally insisted 
upon reading all my correspondence, were much 
excited by the paragraph in which Mr. Tiggs 
mentioned cherries and dried apricots. "Why 
did Mr. Tiggs forget them?" said little Su- 
san the granddaughter, solemnly. "Oh, I 
wish they would come !" said Nelly. "Greedy, 
greedy!" sung George, the youngest boy. 
Meanwhile the elders were discussing their 
correspondence, and the mother had been read- 
ing out Mr. Hexham's note : — 

Lyndhurst, September 21. 

Have you room for me, my dear Mrs. St. Ju- 
lian, and may I come to-morrow for a few days 
with my van ? I find it is a most delightful 
mode of conveyance, and I have been successful 
enough to take some most lovely photographic 
views in the New Forest. I now hope to ex- 
plore your island, beginning with the ' ' Lodges," 
if you are still in the same hospitable mind you 
were when I last saw j-ou. 

With best remembrances to your husband 
and the young ladies, your devoted 

G. Hexham. 

"I like Mr. Hexham. I am glad he is com- 
ing," said Mrs. St. Julian. 

" This is an official-looking missive," said 
Lord Ulleskelf, holding out the large squai-e en- 
velope, with a great red seal, which had come 
for Emmy. 

"What a handwriting !" cried Aileen. She 
was only fifteen, but she was taller already than 
lier married sister, and stood reading over her 
shoulder. " What a letter ! Oh Emmy, what 
a — " 

But Mrs. St. Julian, seeing Emmy flush up, 
interposed again : — 

"Aileen, take these papers to your father. 
What is it, my dear?" to Emilia. 

"It is from my sister-in-law," Emilia said, 
blushing in the light of the lamp. " Mamma, 
what a trouble I am to you . . . . ! She says 
she is — may she come to stay . . . . ? And — 
and — you see she is dear Bevis's sister, and — " 

"Of course, my dear," said her mother, al- 
most reproachfully. " How can you ask?" 

Emilia looked a little relieved, but wistful 
still. " Have you room ? To-morrow?' she 
faltered. 



108 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



Mrs. St. Julian gave her a kiss, and smiled 
and said, "Plenty of room, you goose." And 
then she read : — 

To the lion. Mrs. Bevis Beverley, The Isl- 
and, Tariiiouth, Broadshire. 

Scudamore Castle, September 21. 

My dear Emilia, — Bevis told me to be sure 
and pay you a visit in liis absence, if I had an 
opportunity, and so I shall come, if convenient 
to you, with my maid and a man, on Saturdaj-, 
across country from Scudamore Castle. I hear 
I must cross from Helmington. I can not im- 
agine how people can live on an island when 
there is the main-land for them to choose. 
Yours is not even an island on tlie map. 
Things have been very pleasant here till two 
days ago, when it began to pour with rain, and 
my stepmother arrived unexpectedly with Clem, 
and Clem lost her temper, and Pritchard spoilt 
my new dress, and several pleasant people went 
away, and I, too, determined to take myself off. 
I shall only stay a couple of days with you, so 
pray tell Mrs. St. Julian that I shall not, I 
hope, be much in her way. Do not let her 
make any changes forme; I shall be quite will- 
ing to live exactly as you are all in the habit of 
doing. Any room will do for my man. The 
maid need only have a little room next to 
mine. You won't mind, I know, if I go my own 
gait while I stay with you, for I am an odd crea- 
ture, as I dare say you may have often heard from 
Bevis. I expect to feel dreadfully small with 
all of you clever artistic people, but I shall be 
safe from my lady and Clem, who would never 
venture to come near you. 

My father is all alone at home, and I want 
to get back to him if I can steal a mai-ch on my 
lady. She is so jealous that she will not let 
me be alone with him for one hour if she can 
help it, in her absence. Before she left Castle- 
rookham she sent for that odious sister of hers 
to play piquet with him, and there was a general 
scene when I objected. My fiither took part 
against me, so I started off in a hutf, but he has 
managed to shake off the old wretch, I hear, 
and so I do not mind going back. I must say 
it is very pleasant to have a few half-pence that 
one can call one's own, and to be able to come 
and go one's own way. I assure you that the 
said half-pence do not last forever, however. 
Clem took £50 to pay her milliner's bill, and 
Bevis borrowed £100 before he left, but I dare 
say he will pay me back. 

So good-bye, my dear Emilia, for the present. 
Yours ever. Jane Beverley. 

Mrs. St. Julian did not offer to show Lady 
Jane's letter to St. Julian, but folded it up with 
a faint little suppressed smile. "I think she 
must be a character, Emmy," she said. "I 
dare say she will be very happy with us. 
Queenie" (to me), " will you see what can be 
done to make Lady Jane comfortable ?" and 
there was an end of tlie matter. Lord Ulieskelf 
went and sat out in the verandah, with the others 



until the storm burst which had been gathering, 
through which he insisted on hurrying home, 
notwithstanding all they could say to detain 
him. 

"VVe had expected Lady Jane by the bont 
which brought our other guest the ntxt dav, 
but only Mr. Hexham's dark close-cropped head 
appeared out of the carriage which had been 
sent to meet them. The coachman declared 
there was no lady alone on board. Emilia 
wondered why her sister-in-law had failed : the 
others took Lady JTine's absence very calmly, 
and after some five-o'clock tea St. Julian pro- 
posed a walk. 

" Perhaps I had better stay," Mrs. Beverley 
said to her mother. 

"No, my dear, your father will be disap- 
pointed. She can not come now," said Mrs. 
St. Julian, decidedly ; " and if she does, I am 
here to receive her. Mr. Hexham, you did not 
see her on board? A lady alone. . . . ?" 

No. Hexham had not seen any lone lady on 
board. There was a good-looking person who 
might have answered the description, but she 
had a gentleman with her. He lost sight of 
them at Tarmouth, as he was looking after his 
man, and his van, and his photofraphic appa- 
ratus. It was settled Lady Jane could not pos- 
sibly come till next day. 



II. 

Lady Jane Beverley had always declared 
that she hated three things — islands, clever peo- 
ple, and interference. She knew she was clev- 
er, but she did not encourage this disposition. 
It made people bores and radical in her own 
class of life, and forward if they were low. She 
was not pretty. No; she didn't care for beauty, 
though she confessed she should be very sorry 
if she was not able to afford to dress in the last 
fashion. It was all very Avell for artists and 
such people to say the contrary, but she knew 
that a plain woman well dressed would look 
better than the loveliest dowdy that ever tied 
licr bonnet-strings crooked. It was true her 
brother Bevis had thought otherwise. He had 
married Emilia, who was not in his own rank 
of life ; but Lady Jane supposed he had taught 
her to dress properly after her marriage. She 
had done "her very best to dissuade him from 
that crazy step : once it was over she made the 
best of it, though none of them would listen to 
her ; and indeed she had twice had to lend him 
sums of money when his father stopped his al- 
lowance. It is true he paid her back, other- 
wise slie really did not know how she could 
have paid her bills that quarter. If she had not 
had her own independence she scarcely could 
have got on at all or borne with all Lady 
Mountmore's whims. However, thanks to old 
aunt Adelaide, she need not think of any body 
but herself, and that was a very great comfort 
to her in her many vexations. As it was, Clem 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



100 



was forever riding Bazoolc, and laming her 
ponies, and borrowing money. Beverley and 
Bevis, of course, being her own brothers, had a 
right to expect she would be ready to lend them 
a little now and then ; but really Clem was only 
her step-sister, and considering the terms she and 
Lady Mountmore were on. . . . Lady Jane had 
a way of rambling on, though she was a young 
woman still, not more than six or seven and 
twenty. It was quite true that she had had to 
fight her own battles at home, or else she would 
have been utterly fleeced and set aside. Bev- 
erley, her eldest brotlier, never quite forgave her 
for being the old aunt's heiress, and did not help 
her as he should have done. Bevis was always 
away on his missions or in disgrace. Old Lord 
Mountmore was feeble and almost childish. 
Lady Mountmore was not a pleasant person 
to deal with, and such heart as she possess- 
ed was naturally given to Lady Clem, her own 
child. 

Lady Jane was fortunately not of a sensitive 
disposition. She took life calmly, and did not 
yearn for the affection that was not there to get, 
but she made the best of things, and when Bevis 
was sent to South America on a mission, she it 
was who brought about a sort of general recon- 
ciliation. She was very much pleased witli her- 
self on this occasion. Every body looked to her 
and consulted her. ' ' You will go and seeEmmy 
sometimes, won't you, Jane?" said poor Bevis, 
who was a kind and handsome young fellow. 
Lady Jane said, "Most likely," and congratu- 
lated herself on her own tact and success on this 
occasion, as well as on her general ways, looks, 
style, and position in life. She thought poor 
Emmy was not certainly worth all this fuss, but 
determined to look after her. Lady Jane was 
rather Low Church, slightly suspicious, but 
good-natured and not unamenable to reason. 
She cultivated an abrupt frankness and inde- 
pendence of manner. Her frankness was al- 
most bewildering at times, as Lady Jane ex- 
pected her dictums to be received in silence and 
humility by the unlucky victims of her pene- 
tration. But still, as I have said, being a true- 
hearted woman, if she was once convinced that 
she was in the wrong, she would always own to it. 
Marriage was rather a sore subject with this 
lady. She had once notified to a young evan- 
gelical rector that although his prospects were 
not brilliant, yet she was not indisposed to share 
them, if he liked to come forward. To her ut- 
ter amazement, the young man got up in a con- 
fused manner, walked across the room, talked 
to Lady Clem for the rest of his visit, and never 
called again. Lady Jane was much surprised ; 
but, as jier heart was not deeply concerned in 
the matter, she forgave him on deliberation. 
The one softness in this strange woman's na- 
ture lay in her love for children. Little Bevis, 
her brother's baby, would coo at her, and beat 
her high cheek-bones with his soft little fat 
hand ; she let him pull her hair, the curls, and 
frill, and plaits of an hour's erection, poke his 
fingers into her eyes, swing her watch violently 



I round and round. She was still too young to 
have crystallized into a regular old maid. She 
had never known any love in her life except 
from Bevis, but Bevis had been a little afraid 

I of her. Beverley was utterly iudift'erent to any 

' body but himself. 

Lady Jane had fifteen hundred a year of her 
own. She was not at all bad-looking. Her 

; thick reddish hair was of the fashionable color. 
She was a better woman than some people gave 
her credit for being, seeing this tall, over-dress- 
ed, and overbearing young person going about 
the world with her two startled attendants and 
her hunters. Lady Jane had not the smallest 

j sense of humor or feeling for art : at least, this 

, latter faculty had never been cultivated, though 
she had furnished her boudoir with bran new 
damask and sprawling gilt legs, and dressed her- 
self in the same style ; and had had her picture 
taken by some travelling artist — a pastel all 
frame and rose-colored chalk — which hung up 
over her chimney, smirking at a rose, to the 
amusement of some of her visitors. Lady 
Jane's notion of artists and art were mainly 
formed upon this trophy, and by what she had 
seen of the artist who had produced it. Lady 
Clem used to say that Jane was a born old maid, 
and would never marry; but every body was 
not of that opinion. Lady Jane had been made 
agreat deal of at Scudamore Castle, especially by 
a certain Captain Sigourney, who had been stay- 
ing there, a nephew of Lady Scudamore's — tall, 
dark, interesting, in want of money, notwith- 
standing his many accomplishments. Poor 
Tom Sigourney had been for many years a 
hanger-on at Scudamore. They were extreme- 
ly tired of him, knew his words, looks, tones, 
by heart. Handsome as he undoubtedly was, 
there was something indescribably wearisome 
about him after the first introduction — a certain 
gentle drawl and prose that irritated some peo- 
ple. But Lady Jane was immensely taken by 

I him. His deference pleased her. She was not 

' insensible to the respectful flattery with which 
he listened to every word she spoke. Tom Sig- 
ourney said she was a fine spirited girl, and 

j Lady Scudamore seized the happy occasion — 
urged Tom forward, made much of Lady Jane. 
"Poor girl! she needs a protector," said Lady 

! Scudamore gravely to her daughters. At which 
the young ladies burst out laughing. " Can 

\ you fancy Tom Sigourney taking care of any 

I body?" they cried. 

Lady Mountmore arrived unexpectedly, and 

I the whole little fabric was destroyed. Sigour- 

! ney, who had not much impudence, was simply 

j driven off the field by the elder lady's imperti- 

I nences. Lady Jane was indignant, and de- 
clared she should not stay any longer under 

I the same roof as her mother-in-law. Lady 

I Scudamore did not press her to remain. She 
had not time to attend to her any longer or to 

i family dissensions ; but she did write a few 
words to Tom, telling him of Lady Jane's move- 
ments, and then made it up with Lady Mount- 
more all the more cordiallv that she felt she 



110 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



had not been quite loyal to lier in sending off 
this little missive. 

The little steamer starts for Tarmouth in a 
little crowd and excitement of rolling barrels 
and oxen driven and plunging sheep in barges. 
The people come and look over the side of the 
wooden pier and talk to the captain at his 
wheel. Afternoon rays stream slant, and the 
island glistens across the straits, and the rocks 
stand out in the water ; limpid waters beat 
against the rocks, and toss the buoys and splash 
against the busy little tug ; one or two coal- 
barges make way. Idlers and a child or two 
in the way of the lialf-dozen passengers are 
called upon by name to stand aside on this 
occasion. There are two country dames re- 
turning from market ; friend Hexham in an 
excitement about his van, which is to follow in 
a barge ; and there is a languid, dark, hand- 
some gentleman talking to a grandly dressed 
lady, whose attendants have been piling up 
wraps and Times and dressing-cases and um- 
brellas. 

"Let me hold this for you, it will tire .you," 
said the gentleman, tenderly taking Tlie Times 
out of her hand ; "are you resting ? I thouglit 
I would try and meet you, and see if I could 
save you from fatigue. My aunt Scudamore 
told me you were coming this way. There, 
that is where my people live : that white house 
among the trees." 

" It is a nice place," said Lady Jane. 

The rocks were coming nearer, and the island 
was brightening to life and color, and the quaint 
old bricks and tei-races of Tarmouth were be- 
ginning to show. There was a great ship in 
the distance sliding out to sea, and a couple of 
gulls flew overhead. 

" Befoi'e I retired from the service," said 
Sigourney, "I was quartered at Portsmouth. 
I know this coast well ; that is Tarmouth op- 
posite, and that is — ah, 'm — a pretty place, and 
an uncommon pretty girl at the hotel." 

"How am I to get to these people if they 
have not sent to meet me, I wonder?" inter- 
rupted Lady Jane, rather absently. 

"Leave that to me," said Captain Sigour- 
ney; "I am perfectly at home here and I will 
order a fly. They all know me, and if they are 
not engaged will always come for me. You go 
to the inn. I order you a cup of tea, and one 
for your maid. I see a fast horse put up into 
a trap, and start you straight off." 

" Oh, Captain Sigourney, I am very much 
obliged," said Lady Jane; and so the artless 
conversation went on. 

At Tarmouth the ingenious captain would 
not let her ask whose was a carriage she saw 
standing there, nor take one of the two- usual 
flys in waiting, but he made her turn into tlie 
inn until a special fast horse, with whose paces 
he was well acquainted, could be harnessed. 
This took a long time ; but Lady Jane, excited 
by the novelty of the adventure, calmly enjoyed 
her afternoon tea and devotion, and sat on the 
horse-hair sofa of the little inn, admiring the 



stuffed carp and cuttle-fish on the walls, and 
listening with a charmed ear to Tom's reminis- 
cences of the time when he was quartered at 
Portsmouth. 

The fast horse did not go much quicker than 
his predecessors, and Lady Jane arrived at the 
Lodges about an hour after Hexham, and at 
the same time as his great photographic van. 



III. 

Tkky were all strolling along the cliffs to- 
wards the beacon. It stood upon the summit 
of High Down, a long way off as yet, though 
it seemed close at hand, so clearly did it stand 
out in the still atmosphere of the sunset. It 
stood there stiff and black upon its knoll, an 
old weather-beaten stick with a creaking coop 
for a crown, the pivot round whicli most of 
this little story turns. For when these holiday 
people travelled away out of its reach, they also 
passed out of my ken. We could see the bea- 
con from most of our windows, through all the 
autumnal clematis and iv}' sprays falling and 
drifting about. The children loved the beacon, 
and their little lives were one perpetual struggle 
to reach it in despite of winds, of time of meals, 
of tutors and lessons. The elders, too, loved it 
after their f^ishion. Had they not come and 
established themselves under the shadow of 
High Down, where it had stood as long as the 
oldest inhabitant could remember ! Lord Ulle- 
skelf, in his yacht out at sea, was always glad 
to see tlie familiar old stubby finger rising up 
out of the mist. My cousin, St. Julian the R. 
A., had made a strange, rough sketch of it, and 
of his wife and her eldest daugliter sitting be- 
neath it ; and a sea, and a cloud horizon, gray, 
green, mysterious beyond. He had painted a 
drapery over their heads, and young Emilia's 
arms round the stem. It was an awful little 
picture, Emilia the mother thought when she 
saw it, and she begged her husband to turn its 
foce to the wall in his studio. 

" Don't you see how limpid the water is, and 
how the mist is transparent and drifting before 
the wind?" St. Julian said. "Why do you 
object, you perverse woman ?" 

The wife didn't answer, but her soft cheeks 
flushed. Emilia the daughter spoke, a little 
frightened. 

"They arc like mourners, papa," she whis- 
pered. 

St. Julian shrugged his shoulders at them. 
"And this is a painter's wife !" he cried ; "and 
a painter's daughter !" But he put the picture 
away, for he was too tender to pain them, and 
it lay now forgotten in a closet. This was two 
years ago, before Emilia was married, or had 
come homo with her little son during her hus- 
band's absence. She was carrying the child in 
her arms as she toiled up the hill in company 
witli the others, a tender bright flush in her 
face. Her little Bevis thinks it is he who is 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



Ill 



carrying " Mozzer," as he clutches her tight 
round the neck with his two little arms. 

I suppose nobody ever reached the top of a 
high clitf without some momentary feeling of 
elation — so much left behind, so much achieved. 
There you stand at peace, glowing with exer- 
tion, raised far above the din of the world. They 
were gazing as they came along (for it is only 
of an island that I am writing) at the great sight 
of shining waters, of smiling fertile fields and 
country ; and of distant waters again, that sepa- 
rated them from the pale glimmering coast of 
the main-land. The straits, which lie between 
the island and Broadshire, are not deserted like 
the horizon on the other side (it lies calm, and 
tossing, and self-sufficing, for the coast is a dan- 
gerous one, and little frequented) ; but are 
crowded and alive with boats and white sails : 
ships go sliding past, yachts drift, and great 
bi-igs slowly travel in tow of the tiny steamer 
that crosses and recrosses the water with letters 
and provisions, and comers and goers and guests 
to Ulles Hall and to the Lodge, where St. Julian 
and his family live all through the summer- 
time ; and where some of us indeed remain the 
whole year round. 

The little procession comes winding up the 
down, Lord Ulleskelf and the painter walking 
first, in broad-brimmed hats and coats fashion- 
ed in the island, of a somewhat looser and more 
comfortable cut than London coats. The tutor 
is with tliem. Mr. Hexham, too, is with them; 
as I can see, a little puzzled and interested by 
the ways of us islanders. 

As St. Julian talks Ins eyes flash, and he puts 
out one hand to emphasize what he is saying. 
He is not calm and self-contained as one might 
imagine so great a painter, but a man of strong 
convictions, alive to every life about him and to 
every event. His cordial heart and bright art- 
istic nature are quickly touched and moved. 
He believes in his own genius, grasps' at life as 
it passes, and translates it into a strange, quaint 
revelation of his own, and brings others into his 
way of seeing things almost by magic. But his 
charm is almost irresistible, and he knows it, 
and likes to know it. The time that he is best 
liimself is when he is at his painting ; his brown 
eyes are alight in his pale face, his thick gray 
hair stands on end ; he is a middle-aged man, 
broad, firmly knit, with a curly gray beard, act- 
ive, mighty in his kingdom. He lets people in 
to his sacred temple ; but he makes them put 
their shoes ofl", so to speak, and will allow no 
word of criticism except from one or two. In a 
moment his thick brows knit, and the master 
turns upon the unlucky victim. 

The old tutor had a special and unlucky knack 
of exciting St. Julian's ire. He teaches the 
boys as he taught St. Julian in bygone days, but 
he can not forget that he is not always St. Juli- 
an's tutor, and constantly stings and irritates 
him with his caustic, disappointed old wits. But 
St. Julian bears it all with admirable impatience 
for the sake of old days and of age and misfor- 
tune. 



As they all climb the hill together on this 
special day, the fathers go walking first, then 
comes a pretty rout of maidens and children, 
and Hexham's tall dark head among them. 
Little Mona goes wandering by the edge of the 
cliflT, with her long gleaming locks hanging in 
ripples not unlike those of the sea. The two 
elder girls had come out with some bright-color- 
ed scarfs tied round their necks; but finding 
them oppressive, they had pulled them off", and 
given them to the boys to carry. These scai'fs 
were now banners streaming in the air as the 
boys attacked a tumulus where the peaceful 
bones of the bygone Danish invaders were lying 
buried. The gay young voices echo across the 
heather calling to each other. 

Hester comes last with Mrs. William — Hester 
with the mysterious sweet eyes and crown of 
soft hair. It is not very thick, but like a dark 
yet gleaming cloud about her pretty head. She 
is quite pale, but her lips are bright carnation 
red, and when she smiles she blushes. Hester is 
tall, as are all the sisters, Emilia Beverley, and 
Aileen, who is oaly fifteen, but the tallest of the 
three. Aileen is walking a little ahead with 
Mrs. WillianVs children, and driving them away 
from the edge of the cliff, towards which these 
little moths seem perpetually buzzing. 

The sun begins to set in a strange wild glory, 
and the light to flow along the heights ; all these 
people look to one another like beatified men 
and women. Ulleskelf and St. Julian cease their 
discussion at last, and stand looking seaward. 

"Look at that band of fire on the sea," said 
Lord Ulleskelf. 

" What an evening vesper !" said St. Julian. 
" Hester, are you there ?" 

Hester was there, with sweet, wondering sun- 
set eyes. Her father put his hand fondly on 
her shoulder. There was a sympathy between 
the two which was very touching ; they liked to 
admire together, to praise together. In sorrow 
or trouble St. Julian looked for his wife, in hap- 
piness he instinctively seemed to turn to his fa- 
vorite daughter. 

Hester's charm did not always strike people at 
first sight. She was like some of those sweet 
! simple tunes which haunt you after you have 
, heard them, or like some of those flowers of 
; which the faint delicate scent only comes to you 
when you have waited for an instant. 

Hexham, for instance, until now had admired 
Mrs. Beverley infinitely more than he did her 
sister. He thought Miss St. Julian handsome 
' certainly, but chai'mless ; whereas the sweet, 
gentle young mother, whose wistful eyes seemed 
j looking beyond the sunset, and trying in vain to 
I reach the distant world where her husband would 
\ presently see it rise, appealed to every manly 
I feeling in his nature. But as the father and 
' daughter turned to each other, something in the 
girl's foce — a dim reflex light from the pure 
bright soul within — seemed to touch him, to 
disclose a something, I can not tell you what. 
It seemed to Hexham as if the scales had fallen 
! suddenly from his eyes, and as if in that instant 



112 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



Hester was revealed to liim. She moved on a 
little way with two of the children who had join- 
ed her. The young man followed her with his 
eyes, and almost started when some one spoke 
to him. . . . 

As St. Julian walked on, he began mechani- 
cally to turn over possible effects and combina- 
tions in his mind. The great colorist under- 
stood better than any other how to lay his col- 
ors, luminous, harmonious, shining with the real 
liglit of nature, for they were in conformity to 
her laws; and suddenly he spoke, turning to 
Hexham, who was a photographer, as I have 
said, and who indeed was now travelling in a 
gypsy fashion, in search of subjects for his cam- 
era. 

"In many things," he said; "my art can 
equal yours, but how helpless we both are when 
we look at such scenes as these. It makes me 
sometimes mad to tliink that I am only a man 
with oil-pots attempting to reproduce such won- 
ders." 

"Fortunately they will reproduce themselves 
whether you succeed or not,"* said the tutor. 
St. Julian looked at him with his bright eyes. 
The old man had spoken quite simply. He did 
not mean to be rude— and the painter was si- 
lent. 

"My art is 'a game half of skill, half of 
chance,' "said Hexham. "When both these 
divinities favor me I shall bc^in to think myself 
repaid for the time and the money and the 
chemicals I have wasted." 

"Have you ever tried to photograph figures 
in a full blaze of light?" LordUlIcskelf asked, 
looking at Mona and his own little girl standing 
with Hester, and shading their eyes from a 
bright stream that was playing like a halo about 
their heads. There was something unconscious 
and lovely in the little group, with their white 
draperies and flowing locks. A bunch of illu- 
mined berries and trailing ci'eepers hung from 
little lady Millicent's hair: the light of youth 
and of life, the sweet wondering eyes, all went 
to make a more beautiful picture than graces or 
models could ever attain to. St. Julian looked 
and smiled with Lord Ulleskelf. 

Hexham answered, a little distractedly, that 
he should like to show Lord Ulleskelf the at- 
tempt he had once made. "Nature is a very un- 
certain sort of assistant," he added; "and I, 
too, might exclaim, ' Oh that I am but a man, 
with a bit of yellow paper across my window, 
and a row of bottles on my shelf, trying to evoke 
life from the film upon my glasses !'" 

"I think you are all of you talking very pro- 
fanely," said Lord Ulleskelf; "before all these 
children, and in such a sight as this. But I 
shall be very glad to come down and look at your 
photographs, Mr. Hexham, to-morrow morn- 
ing," he added, fearing the young man might 
be hurt by his tone. 

The firebrand in the still rippled sea turned 
from flame to silver as the light changed and 
ebbed. The light on the sea seemed dimmer, 
but then the land caught fire in turn, and trees 



and downs and distant roof-tops blazed in this 
great illumination, and the shadows fell black 
upon the turf. 

Here Mrs. William began saying in a plaintive 
tone of voice that she was tired, and I offered to 
go back with her. Every body indeed was on the 
move, but we two took a shorter cut, while the 
others went home with the Ulleskelfs, turning 
down by a turning of the down towards a lane 
that leads to Ulles Hall. 

And so, having climbed up with some toil and 
effort to that beautiful height, we all began to 
descend once more into the every-day of life, and 
turn from glowing seas and calm-sailing clouds 
to the thought of cutlets and chickens. The 
girls had taken back their scarfs and were Tun- 
ing down hill. Ailecn was carrying one of 
Margaret's children, Emilia Beverly had her lit- 
tle Bevis in her arms, Hester was holding by 
her father's arm, as they came back rather si- 
lent, but satisfied and happy. The sounds from 
the village below began to reach us, and the 
lights in the cottages and houses to twinkle ; 
the cliffs rose higher and higher as we descend- 
ed our different ways. The old beacon stood 
out black against the ruddy sky : a moon began 
to hang in the high faint heaven, and a bright 
star to pierce through the daylight. 

Ulles Hall stands on the way from Tarmouth 
to the Lodges: it is a lovely old house stand- 
ing among woods in a hollow, and blown by sea- 
breezes that come through pine-stems and sweet 
green glades, starred with primroses in spring, 
and sprinkled w-ith russet leaves in autumn. 
The Lodges where St. Julian lives are built a 
mile nearer to the sea. Houses built on the 
roadside, but inclosed by tall banks and hedges, 
and with long green gardens running to the 
down. They have been built piece by piece. 
It would be difficult to describe them : a gable 
here, a wooden gallery thatched, a window 
twinkling in a bed of ivy, hanging creepers, 
clematis and loveliest Virginian sprays redden- 
ing and drinking in the western light, and re- 
flecting it undimmed in their beautiful scarlet 
veins — scarlet gold melting into green : one of 
the rooms streams with liglit like light through 
stained windows of a church.* 



IV. 

As I reached the door with Mrs. William, I 
saw a bustle of some sort, a fly, some boxes, a 
man, a maid, a tall lady of about seven or eight 



* A little child passing by in the road looked up one 
day at the Lodges, and said: ''Oh, what pretty leaf- 
liouses 1 Oh, mother, do let us live there! I think tlie 
robins must have made them." '' I think that is where 
we are going to, Mona," said the mother. She was a poor 
young widowed cousin of St. Julian's. She came for a 
time, but they took Iier in and never let her go again out 
of the leaf-house. She staid and became a sort of fi-iend, 
chaperone, governess, and house-keeper: and to these kind 
and tender friends and relations, if slie were to attempt 
to set down here all that she owes to them, to their warm, 
cordial liearts, and bright, sweet natures, it would make a 
story apart from the one she has in her mind to write to- 
day. 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



113 



and twenty, dressed in the very height of fash- 
ion, with a very tall hat and feather, whom I 
guessed at once to he Lady Jane. Mrs. Wil- 
liam, who has not the good manners of the 
rest of the family, shrank back a little, saying 
— "I really can not fiice her: it's that Lady 
Jane;" but at that moment Lady Jane, who 
was talking in a loud querulous tone, suddenly 
ceased, and turned round. 

"Here is Mrs. St. Julian," said the flyman, 
and my dear mistress came out into the garden 
to receive her guest. 

"I am so glad you have come," I heard her 
say, quietly ; " we had given you up — are you 
tired? Come in. Let the servant see to your 
luggage." She put out her white gentle hand, 
and I was amused to see Lady Jane's undis- 
guised lool^f surprise : she had expected to meet 
with some bustling, good-humored housekeeper. 
Bcvis had always praised his mother-in-law to 
her, but Lady Jane had a way of not always 
listening to wliat people said, as she rambled on 
in her own fashion ; and now, having fully made 
up her mind as to the sort of person Mrs. St. 
Julian would be. Lady Jane felt slightly ag- 
grieved at her utter dissimilarity to her precon- 
ceptions. Siie followed her into the iiouse, with 
her high hut stuck upon the top of her tall head, 
walking in a slightly defiant manner. 

"I thought Emilia would have been here to 
receive me," said Lady Jane, not over-pleased. 

"I sent her out," the mother said. "I 
thought you would let me be your hostess for 
an houi. Will you come up into my room?" 

Mrs. St. Julian led the way into the drawing- 
room, where Lady Jane sank down into a chair, 
crossing her top-boots and shaking out her 
skirts. 

"I am afraid there was a mistake about 
meeting you," said the hostess; "the carriage 
went, but only brought back Mr. Hexham and 
a message that you were not there." 

"I fortunately met a friend on boai'd," said 
Lady Jane, hurriedly. "He got me a fly; 
thank you, it did not signify." 

Lady Jane was not anxious to enter into pai'- 
ticulars, and when Mrs. St. Julian went on to 
ask how it was she had had to wait so long, the 
young lady abruptly said something about after- 
noon tea, asked to see her room and to speak to 
her maid. 

" Will you come back to me when you have 
given your orders ?" said Mrs. St. Julian. "My 
cousin, Mrs. Campbell, will show you the way." 

Lady Jane, with a haughty nod to poor Mrs. 
Campbell, followed with her high head up the 
quaint wooden stairs along the gallery with its 
odd windows and slits, and china, and orna- 
ments. 

"This is your room ; I hope you will find it 
comfortable," said the housekeeper, opening a 
door, tlirough wliich came a flood of light. 

" Is that for my maid ?" asked Lady Jane, 
pointing to a large and very comfortably fur- 
nished room just opposite to her own door. 

" That room is Mr. Hexham's," said Quecnie ; 
11 



"your maid's room leads out of your dressing- 
room." The arrangement seemed obvious, but 
Lady Jane was not quite in a temper to be 
pleased. 

" Is it comfortable, Pritchard ? Shall you be 
able to work there ? I must speak about it if 
you are not comfortable." 

Pritchard was a person who did not like to 
commit herself. Not that she wished to com- 
plain, but she should prefer her ladyship to 
judge ; it was not for her to say. She looked 
so mysterious that Lady Jane ran up the little 
winding stair that led to the turret, and found 
a little white-curtained chamber, with a pleasant 
bright look-out over land and sea. 

" Why, this is a delightful room, Pritchard," 
said Lady Jane. " I should like it myself; it 
is most comfortable." 

" Yes, my lady, I thought it was highly com- 
fortable," said Pritchard ; "but it was not for 
me to venture to say so." 

Lady Jane was a little afraid of Mrs. St. Ju- 
lian's questionings. To tell the truth, she felt 
that she had been somewhat imprudent ; and 
though she was a person of mature age and in- 
dependence, yet she was not willing to resign 
entirely all pretensions to youthful dependence, 
and she was determined, if possible, not to men- 
tion Sigourney's name to her entertainers. Hav- 
ing frizzed up her curling red locks, with Mrs. 
Pritchard's assistance, shaken out her short 
skirts, added a few more bracelets, tied on a 
coroneted locket, and girded in her tight silver 
waistband, she prepared to return to her hostess 
and her tea. She felt excessively ill used by 
Emilia's absence, but, as I have said, dared not 
complain for fear of more questions as to the 
cause of her delay. 

All along the passage were more odds and 
ends, paintings, pictures, sketches framed, a 
cabinet or two full of china. Lady Jane was 
too much used to the ways of the world to mis- 
take the real merit of this .heterogeneous collec- 
tion ; but she supposed that the artists made 
the things up, or perhaps sold them again to 
advantage, and that there was some meaning 
which would be presently explained for it all. 
What most impressed Lady Jane with a feeling 
of respect for the inhabitants of the house was 
a huge Scotch sheep-dog, who came slowly down 
the gallery to meet her, and then passed on 
with a snuif and a wag of his tail. 

The door of the mistress's room, as it was 
called, was open ; and as Lady Jane followed her 
conductress in, she found a second five o'clock 
tea and a table spread with rolls and country 
butter and home-made cake. A stream of west- 
ern light was flowing through the room and out 
into the gallery beyond, where the old majolica 
plates flashed in the glitter of its sparkle. The 
mistress herself was standing with her back 
turned, looking out through the window across 
the sea, and trying to compose herself before 
she asked a question she had very near at heart. 

Lady Jane remained waiting, feeling for once 
a little shy, and not knowing exactly what to do 



lU 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



hiBx^ for Mrs. Campbell, who was not without 
a certain amount of feminine malice, stood 
meekly until Lady Jane should take the lead. 
The young lady was not accustomed to deal with 
inferiors who did not exactly behave as such, 
and though inwardly indignant, she did not 
quite know how to resent the indifference with 
which she considered she was treated. She 
tossed her head, and at last said, not in the 
most conciliatory voice, "I suppose I may take 
some tea, Mrs. St. Julian ?" Tlie sight of the 
sweet pale face turning round at her question 
softened her tone. Mrs. St. Julian came slowly 
forward, and began to push a chair with her 
white feeble hands, evidently so unfit for such 
work, that Jane, who was kind-hearted, sprang 
forward, lockets, top-boots, and all, to prevent 
her. "You had much better sit down your- 
self," said she, good-naturedly. "I thought 
you looked ill just now, though I had never seen 
you in my life before. Let me pour out the 
tea." 

Mrs. St. Julian softened, too, in the other's 
unexpected heartiness and kindness. " I had 
something to say to you. I think it upset mc 
a little. I heard — I feared " — she said, nerv- 
ously hesitating. "Lady Jane, did you hear 
from your brother — from Bevis — by the last 
mail . . . . ? Emmy does not know the mail is 

in I have been a little anxious for her," 

and Mrs. St. Julian changed color. 

"Certainly I heard," said Lady Jane; "or 
at least my father did. Bevis wanted some 
money raised. Why were you so anxious, Mrs. 
St. Julian ?" asked Lady Jane, with a slightly 
amused look in her face. It was really too ab- 
surd to have these peof)le making scenes and 
alarms when she was perfectly at her ease. 

"I am thankful you have heard," said Mrs. 
St. Julian, with a sudden flush and brightness 
in her wan face, which made Lady Jane open 
her eyes in wonder. 

"Do you care so much?" said she, a little 
puzzled. " I am glad that I do not belong to 
an anxious family. I am very like Bevis, they 
say; and I know there is notliing that he dis- 
likes so much as a fuss about nothing." 

"I know it," said Mrs. St. Julian. "He is 
very good and kind to bear with my foolish 
alarms, and I wonder — could you — would you 
too — forgive me for my foolishness, Lady Jane, 
if I were to ask you a great favor? Do you 
think I might see that letter to your father? I 
can not tell you what a relief it would be to me. 
I told you Emilia does not know that the mail 
is in ; and if — if she might learn it by seeing in 
his own handwriting that Bevis was well, I 
think it would make all the difference to her, 
poor child." 

There was something in the elder lady's gentle 
persistence which struck the young one as odd, 
and yet touching ; and although she was much 
inclined to refuse, from a usual habit of con- 
tradiction, she did not know how to do so when 
it came to the point. 

"I'll write to my father," said Lady Jane, 



with a little laugh. "I have no doubt he will 
let you see the letter since you wish it so much." 

" Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. St; Julian, 
"and for the good news you have given me; 
and I will now confess to you," she added, smil- 
ing, " that I sent Emmy out on purpose that I 
might have this little talk. Are you rested? 
Will you come into the garden with me for a 
little?" 

Lady Jane was touched by the sweet mater- 
nal manner of the elder woman, and followed 
quite meekly and kindly. As the two ladies 
were pacing the garden-walk they were joined 
by the housekeeper and by Mrs. William, with 
her little dribble of small-talk. 

Many of the windows of the Lodges were 
alight. The light from witliout still painted the 
creepers, the lights from within \^re coming 
and going, and the gleams were falling upon 
the ivy-leaves here and there. One-half of the 
place was in shadow, and the western side in 
daylight still. There was a sweet rush of scent 
from the s^'cetbricrs and clematis. It seemed 
to hang in the still evening air. Underneath 
the hedges, bright-colored flowers seemed sud- 
denly starting out of the twilight, while above; 
in the lingering daylight, the red berries sparkled 
and caught the stray limpid rays. There was 
a sound of sea waves washing the not distant 
beach ; a fisherman or two, and soldiers from 
the little fort, were strolling along the road, and 
peering in as they passed the brigiit little homes. 
The doors were wide open, and now and then a 
figure passed — a servant, Mrs. Cam])bell — who 
was always coming and going : William, the 
eldest son, coming out of the house : he had 
been at work all day. 

The walking party came up so silently that 
they were there in the garden almost before the 
others had heard them : a beloved crowd, ex- 
claiming, dispersing again. It was a' pretty 
sight to see the meetings ; little Susan running 
straight to her father, William St. Julian. He 
adored his little round-eyed daughter, and im- 
mediately carried her off in his arms. Little 
Mona, too, had got hold of her mother's hand, 
while Lady Jane was admiring Bevis, and being 
greeted by the rest of the party, and introduced 
to those whom she did not already know. 

"We had quite given you up, dear Jane," 
said little Emilia, wistfully gazing and trying 
to see some look of big Bevis in his sister's face. 
"How I wish I had staid, but you had mam- 
ma." 

"We gave you up," said Hester, " when Mr. 
Hexham came without you " 

" I now find I liad the honor of travelling with 
Lady Jane," said Hexham, looking amused, and 
making a little bow. 

Lady Jane turned her back upon Mr. Hex- 
ham. She had taken a great dislike to him on 
board the boat ; she had noticed him looking at 
her once or twice, and at Captain Sigourncy. 
She found it a very good plan, and always 
turned her back upon people slie did not like. 
It checked any familiarity. It was much bet- 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



Hi 



ter to do so at once, and let them see what their 
proper place was. If people of a certain posi- 
tion in the world did not keep others in tlieir 
proper places, there was no knowing what fa- 
miliarity might not ensue. And then she ran 
back to little Bevis again, and lifted him up, 
struggling. For the child had forgotten her, 
and seemed not much attracted by her appear- 
ance. 

' ' Lady Jane Beverley has something milita- 
ry about her," said Hexham to Mrs. Campbell. 

As he spoke a great loud bell began to ring, 
and with a little chorus of exclamations, the la- 
dies began to disperse to dress for dinner. 

"You know your way, Mr. Hexham," said 
Mrs. Campbell, pointing. "Go through that 
side door, and straight up and along the gal- 
lery." 

Mrs. St. Julian had put her arm into her hus- 
band's, and walked a little way with him towards 
the house. 

"Henry," she said, "thank Heaven, all is 
well. Lord Mountmore heard from Bevis by 
this mail. Lady Jane has promised to show 
me the letter : she had heard nothing of that 
dreadful report." 

"It was not likely," St. Julian said ; " Ul- 
leskelf only saw the paper by chance. I am 
glad you were so discreet, my dear." 

"I should like to paint a picture of them," 
said Hexham to the housekeeper, looking at 
them once more before he hurried into the 
house. 

The two were standing at the threshold of 
their home, Mrs. St. Julian leaning upon her 
husband's arm: the strong keen-faced man with 
his bright gallant bearing, and the wife with her 
soft and feminine looks fixed upon him as she 
bent anxiously to catch his glance. She was 
as tall as he was : for St. Julian was a middle- 
sized man, and Mrs. St. Julian was tall for a 
woman. 

Meanwhile Hexham, who was not familiar 
with the ways of the house, and who took time 
at his toilet, ran up stairs, hastily passed his 
own door, went along a passage, up a staircase, 

down a staircase He found himself in 

the dusky garden again, where the lights were 
almost put out by this time, though all the flow- 
ers were glimmering, and scenting, and awake 
still. There was a red streak in the sky ; all 
the people had vanished, but turning round he 
saw — he blinked his eyes at the sight — a white 
figure standing, visionary, mystical, in the very 
centre of a bed of tall lilies, in a soft gloom of 
evening light. Was it a vision ? For the first 
time in his life Hexham felt a little strangely, 
and as if he could believe in the super-nature 
which he sometimes had scoffed at ; the young 
man made one step forward and stopped again. 
"It is I, Mr. Hexham," said a shy, clear voice. 
"I came to find some flowers for Emilia." It 
was Hester's voice. Surely some kindly provi- 
dence sets true lovers' way in pleasant places ; 
and all they do and say has a grace of its own 
which they impart to all inanimate things. 



The evening, the sweet stillness, the ti'embling 
garden hedges, the fields beyond, the sweet 
girlish tinkle of Hester's voice, made Hexham 
feel for the first time in his life as if be was 
standing in a living shrine, and as if he ought 
to fall down on his knees and worship. 

" Can I help you ?" he said. " Miss Hester, 
may I have a flower for my button-hole ?" 

" There are nothing but big lilies," said the 



V. 

Ix writing this little episode I have tried to 
put together one thing and another — to describe 
some scenes that I saw myself and some that 
were described to me. My window looks out 
upon the garden, and is just over the great bed 
of lilies. I shut it down, and began to dress 
for dinner, with an odd dim feeling already of 
what the future might have in store. It was a 
half-conscious consciousness of what was pass- 
ing in the minds of those all about. For some 
days past Mrs. St. Julian's anxious face seemed 
to follow me about the room. Poor little Emi- 
lia's forced patience and cheerfulness were more 
sad to me than any impatience or fretfulness. 
Hexham, Hester, even Lady Jane, each seemed 
to strike a note in my present excited and recep- 
tive state of mind. It is one for which there is 
no name, but which few people have not expe- 
rienced. I dressed quickly, the dark corners 
of my room seemed loomitig at me, and it was 
with an odd, anxious conviction of disturbance 
at hand that I hurried down along the gallery 
to the drawing-room, where we assembled be- 
fore dinner. On my way I met Emilia on the 
stairs, in her white dinner-dress, with a soft 
white knitted shawl drawn closely round her. 
She slid her little chill hand through my arm, 
and asked me why I looked so pale. Dear soft 
little woman, she seemed of us all the most ten- 
der and disarming. Even sorrow and desola- 
tion, I thought, should be vanquished by her 
sweetness. And perhaps I was right when I 
thought so. 

We were not the last. Hester followed us. 
She was dressed in a floating gauze dress, and 
she had one great white lil_v in her dark hair. 
" It is a great deal too big, Hester," cried Mrs. 
William ; but I thought I had never seen her 
more charming. 

"How much better mamma is looking I"' 
Hester said that evening at dinner, and as she 
spoke she glanced at her mother sitting at the 
head of the long table in the tall carved chair. 

When the party was large, and the sons of 
the house at home, we dined in an old disused 
studio of St. Julian's : a great wooden room, 
unpapered and raftered, with a tressle table of 
the painter's designing, and half-finished fres- 
coes and sketches hanging upon the walls. 
There was a high wooden chimney, and an old- 
fashioned glass reflecting the scene, the table, 
the people, the crimson drugget, of which a 



116 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



square covered the boards. In every thing St. 
Julian touclied there was a broad quaint stamp 
of his own, and this room had been inhabited 
and altered by him. Two rough hanging 
lamps from the rafter lit up the long white ta- 
ble, and the cups of red berries and green leaves 
with which I had attempted to dress it. There 
was something almost patriarchal in this little 
assembly : the father at the end of the table, 
the sons and daughters all around, William and 
his wife by Mrs. St. Julian, and pretty Hester 
sitting by her father. On the other side Lady 
Jane was established. St. Julian had taken 
her in. He had asked her a few questions at 
first, specially about the letter she had received 
from Bevis, but carefully, so that Emilia should 
not overhear them. 

"He seemed to be enjoying himself," said 
Lady Jane. " He was talking of going on a 
shooting-party a little way up the river, if he 
could get through his work in time." 

She did not notice St. Julian's grave look as 
she spoke, and went on in her usual fashion. 
I remember slie was giving him one person's 
views on art and another's, and her own, and 
describing the pastel she had had done. St. 
Julian looked graver and graver, and more im- 
patient as she went on. Patience was not his 
strong point. 

"How long does it take you to paint a pic- 
ture, Mr. St. Julian ?" Lady Jane asked. "I 
wish I could paint, and I'm sure I wish Bever- 
ley could, for he can not manage upon his al- 
lowance at all. How nice it must be to take 
up a brush and — paint checks, in fiict, as you 
do. Clem can sketch wonderfully quickly ; she 
took off Lord Sciidamore capitally. Of course 
she would not choose to sketch for money, but 
artists have said they would gladly offer large 
sums for her paintings. Do your daughters help 
you?" inquired poor Lady Jane affably, feeling 
that she was suiting lier conversation to her 
company. " Do you ever do caricatures?" 

" We will talk about painting. Lady Jane, 
when you have been here some days longer," 
said St. Julian. " You had better ask the girls 
any questions you may wish to have answered, 
and get them, if possible, to give you some idea 
of the world we live in." 

To poor Lady Jane's utter amazement St. 
Julian then began talking to Hexham across the 
table, and signed to his wife to move imme- 
diately after dinner was over. We all went 
back walking across the garden to the drawing- 
room, for the niglit was fine, and the little cover- 
ed way was for bad weather. 

Some of us sat in the verandah. It was a 
bright starry evening. A great bright planet 
was rising from behind the sweeping down. 
The lights from the wooden room were shining 
too. Lady Jane presently seemed to get tired of 
listening to poor Mrs. William's nursery retro- 
spections, — Mary Annes, and Susans, and tea 
and sugar, and what Mrs. Mickleman had said 
when she parted from her nursery-maid ; and 
' what Mrs. William herself meant to sav to the 



girl when she got home on Monday ; not tliat 
Mrs. William was disposed to rely entirely u))on 
Mrs. Mickleman, who was certainly given to ex- 
aggerate, etc. The girls were in the garden. 
Emilia had gone up to little Bevis. Lady Jane 
jumped up with the usual rattle of bracelets and 
necklaces, and said she should take a turn too 
and join the young ladies. 

Mrs. William confessed, as Lady Jane left the 
verandah, that she was glad she was not her sis- 
ter-in-law. 

"She has such a strange abrupt manner," 
said the poor lady. "Don't you find it very 
awkward, Queenie ? I never know whether she 
likes me to talk to her or not — do you ?" 

"I have no doubt about it," I said, laugh- 
ing. 

The evening was irresistible : starlit, moon- 
lit, soft-winded. 

j A few minutes later I, too, went out into the 

I garden, and walked along the dark alley towards 
the knoll, from whence tliere is a pretty view of 
the sea by night, and over the hedge and along 
the lane. From where I stood 1 saw that the 
garden-gate was open, for the moon vas shining 

I in a broad silver stream along the lane that led 
to the farnr. The farm was not really ours, but 
all our supplies came from there, and we felt as 
if it belonged to us. Mona knew the cows and 
the horses, and the very sheep inclosed in their 
pen for the night. As I was standing peaceful 
and resting under the starlit dome, something a 
little strange and inexplicable now happened, 
which I could not at all understand at the time. 
I saw some one moving in the lane beyond tlie 
hedge. I certainly recognized Lady Jane walk- 
ing away in the shadow that lay along the banks 
of that moonlit stream; but what was curious 
to me was this : it seemed to me that she was 
not alone, that a dark tall figure of a man was 
beside her. It was not one of our men, thougli 

I I could not see the face— of this I felt quite 
sure. The two went on a little way, then she 

I turned; and I could have declared that I saw 

j the gleam of his face in the distance through 
the shadow. Lady Jane's hand was hanging in 
the moonlight, and her trinkets glistening. Of 
her identity I had no doubt. There is a big 

I tree which hangs over the road, and when they, 
or when she, reached it, she stopped for a mo- 

': ment, as if to look about her, and then, or\\y 
Lady Jane appeared from its shadow — tlie oth- 
er figure had vanished. I could not understand 
it at all. I have confessed that I am a foolish 
person and superstitious at times. I Iiad never 

j seen poor Bevis. Had any thing happened ? 
Could it be a vision of him that I had seen ? I 
got a little frightened, and my heart began to 
beat. It was only for an instant that I was so 
absurd. I walked hastily towards the garden 
door, and met Lady Jane only a few steps ofi", 
coming up very coolly. 

"How lovely this moonlight is, Mrs. Camp- 
bell !" she cried, more affably than usual. 

" Who was that with you ? Didn't I see some 
one with you, Lady Jane ?" I asked, hurriedly. 



PROM AN ISLAND. 



117 



Lady Jane looked me full in the face. 

" What do j'ou mean?" said she. "I went 
out for a stroll by myself. I am quite alone, as 
you see." 

Sometliing in her tone reassured me. I felt 
sure she was not speaking the truth. It was no 
apparition I had seen, but a real tangible person. 
It was no affair of mine, though it struck me as 
a singular proceeding. We both walked back 
to the house together. The girls' white dress- 
es were gleaming here and there upon the lawn. 
Hexham passed us hastily and went on and 
joined them. William was taking a turn with 
liis cigar. As we passed the dining-room win- 
dow I happened to look in. St. Julian was sit- 
ting at the table, with his head resting on his 
hands, and beside him Mrs. St. Julian, wlio must 
liave gone back to the room after dinner. A 
paper was before them, over which tiie two were 
bending. 

We found no one in the drawing-room, and 
only a lamp spluttering and a tea-table simmer- 
ing in one corner, and Mrs. William, who was 
half asleep on the sofa. " I shall go back to 
the others," said my companion; and I follow- 
ed, nothing loath. 

What a night it was ! Still, dark, sweet, fra- 
grant shadows, quivering upon the moon-stream; 
a sudden, glowing summer's night, coming like 
a gem set in the midst of gray days, of storms, 
swift gales, of falling autumnal leaves and sea- 
sons. 

The clear three-quarter moon was hanging 
over the gables and roofs of the Lodges ; the 
high stars streamed light ; a distant sea burnt 
with pale radiance ; the young folks chattered 
in the trembling gleams. 

"Look at that great planet rising over the 
down," said Hexham. " Should you like that 
to be your star, Miss St. Julian ?" 

" I should like a fixed star," Hester answer- 
ed, gravely. " I should like it to be quite still 
and unchanging, and to shine with an even 
light!" 

"That is not a bit like you, Hester," said 
AVilliam, who had come up, and who still had 
a school-boy trick of teasing his sisters; "it 
is much more like Emilia, or my wife. You 
describe them and take all the credit to your- 
self." 

" Oh William ! Emilia is any thing but a 
fixed star," cried Aileen. " She would like to 
jump out of her orbit to-morrow, and go oft" to 
Bevis, if she could. Margaret is certainly more 
like." 

" You shall have the whole earth for your 
planet, Miss Hester," said IIexl]|am. Then he 
added less seriously, "They say it looks very 
bright a little way oflf." 

Moonlight gives a strange, intensified mean- 
ing to voices as well as to shadows. No one 
spoke for a minute, until Lady Jane, who was 
easily bored, jumped up and said that people 
ought to be ashamed to talk about stars now- 
adays, so much had been said already ; and 
that, after all, she should go back for some tea. 



I left her stirring her cup, with Mrs. William 
still half asleep in her corner, and I myself 
went up to my room. Mrs. St. Julian was sit- 
ting with her husband in the studio, the parlor- 
maid told me. Outside was the great burning 
night, inside a silent house, dark, with empty 
chambers and doors wide open on the dim stair- 
case and passages. I would gladly have staid 
out \vitli the others, but I had a week's accounts 
to overlook on this Saturday night. Tlie odd 
anxiety I had felt before dinner came back to 
me again, now that I was alone. I tried to 
shake off" the feeling which oppressed me, and 
I went in and stood for a moment by my little 
Mona's bedside. Her sweet face, her quiet 
breath, and peaceful dreams seemed to me to 
belong to the stars outside. As I looked at 
the child, I found myself once more thinking 
over my odd little adventure with Lady Jane, 
and wondering whether it would be well to 
speak of it, and to whom ? I had lived long 
enough to feel some of the troubles and com- 
plications botli of speech and of silence. Once 
more my heart sank, as it used to do when dif- 
ficulties seemed to grow on every side before I 
had come to this kind house of refuge ; and 
yet, difficult as life was undoubtedly to me, as 
well as to others, it seemed to me, looking back, 
that, seen from a distance, a light shone from 
the hearts and doings of the children of men, 
as clear as the light of which Hexham had 
spoken, reflected from this sin-weighted and 
sorrow-driven world. I pulled my table and 
my lamp to the window : the figures were still 
wandering in the garden ; I saw Hester's white 
dress flit by more than once. Such nights 
count in the sum of one's life. 



VI. 

MoNA was standing ready dressed in her 
Sunday frills and ribbons by my bedside when 
I awoke next morning. 

"It is raining, mamma," she said. "We 
had wanted to go up to the beacon before 
breakfast." 

It seemed difficult to believe that this was the 
same world that I had closed my eyes upon. 
The silent, brilliant, mysterious world of stars 
and sentiment was now gray, and mist-wreathed 
and rain-drenched. The practical result of my 
observations was to say, "Mona, go and tell 
them to light a fire in the dining-room." 

St. Julian, who is possessed by a horrible 
stray demon of punctuality, likes all his family 
to assemble to the sound of a certain clanging 
bell that is poor Emilia's special aversion. 
Mrs. St. Julian never comes down to break- 
fast. I was only just in time tliis morning to 
fulfill my duties and make the tea and the cof- 
fee. Hester came out of her room as I passed 
the door. She, too, had come back to every- 
day life again, and had put away her white 
robes and lilicB for a stuff dress — a quaint blue 



118 



FROM AN ISLAND, 



dress, with puffed sleeves, and a pretty fanciful 
trimming of her mother's devising, gold braid 
and velvet round the wrists and neck. Her 
pretty gloom of dark hair was pinned up with 
golden pins. As I looked at her admiringly, I 
began to think to myself that, after all, rainy 
mornings were perhaps as compatible with sen- 
timent as purple starry skies. I could not help 
thinking that there was something a little shy 
and conscious in her manner : she seemed to 
tread gently, as if she were afraid of waking 
some one, as if she wero thinking of other 
things. She waited for me, and would not go 
into the dining-room until siie had made sure 
that I was following. Only Hexham was 
there, reading his letters by the burning fire 
of wood, when we first came in. He turned 
round and smiled :— had the stars left their 
imprint upon him too ? He carried his selec- 
tion of eggs and cutlets and toasted bread from 
the side-table, and put himself quietly down by 
Hester's side : all the others dropped in by de- 
grees. 

" Here is another French newspaper for you, 
papa," said Emilia, turning over her letters with 
a sigh. St. Julian took it from her quickly, 
and put it in his pocket. 

Breakfiist was over. The rain was still pour- 
ing in a fitful, gusty way, green ivy-leaves were 
dripping, creepers hanging dully glistening about 
the windows, against which the great fresh drops 
came tumbling. The children stood curiously 
watching, and making a play of the falling drops. 
There was Susy's rain-drop, and George's on the 
window-ledge, and Mr. Hexham's. 

"Oh, Mr. Hexham's has won !" cried Susy, 
clasping her little fat hands in an agony of in- 
terest. 

I looked out and saw the great gusts of rain 
beating and drifting against the hedgerows, 
wind-blown mists crossing the fields and tlie 
downs. It was a stormy Sunday, coming after 
that night of wonders. But the wind was 
high ; the clouds might break. The church 
was two miles off, and we could not get there 
then ; later we hoped we might have a calmer 
hour to walk to it. 

The afternoon brightened as we had expect- 
ed, and most of us went to afternoon service 
snugly wrapped in cloaks, and stoutly shod, 
walking up hill and down hill between the 
bright and dripping hedges to the little white- 
washed building where we Islanders are ex- 
horted, buried, christened, married by turns. 
It is always to me a touching sight to see the 
country folks gathering to the sound of the old 
jangling village bells, as they ring their pleas- 
ant calls from among the ivy and bird's-ncsts 
in the steeple, and summon — what a strange, 
toil-worn, weather-beaten company ! — to prayer 
and praise. Furrowed faces bent, hymn-books 
grasped in hard crooked fingers, the honest red 
smiling cheeks of the lads and lasses trudging 
along side by side, the ancient garments from 
lavender drawers, the brown old women from 
their kitchen corners, the babies toddling hand 



in hand. Does one not know the kindly Sun- 
day tlirong, as it assembles, across fields and 
downs, from nestling farm and village byways ? 
Mrs. William's children came trotting behind 
her, exchanging cautious glances with the Sun- 
day-school, and trying to imitate a certain bus- 
iness-like, chui'ch-going air wliich their mother 
afiected. Hexham and the others were follow- 
ing at some little distance. Emilia never spoke 
much, and to-day she was very silent ; but 
though she was silent I could feel her depres- 
sion, and knew, as well as if she had put it all 
into Mords, what was passing in her mind. 
Once during the service, I heard a low shiver- 
ing sigh by my side, but when I glanced at her, 
her face looked placid, and as we came away 
the light of the setting sun came shining full 
upon it. A row of boys were sitting on tlie 
low churchyard wall in this western light, 
which lit up the fields and streamed across the 
homeward paths of the little congregation. I 
must not forget to say that, as we passed out, 
it seemed to me that, in the crowd waiting 
about the door, I recognized a tall and bend- 
ing figure that I had seen somewhere before. 
Somewhere — by moonlight. I remembered 
presently when and wliere it was. 

"Who was that?" asked Emilia, seeing me 
glance curiously. 

"That is what I should like to know," said 
I. " Shall we wait for Lady Jane ? I have a 
notion she could tell us." 

We waited, but no Lady Jane appeared. 

"She must have gone on," said Emilia. 
"It is getting cold; let ns follow them, dear 
Queenie." 

I was still undecided as to what I had bet- 
ter do. It seemed that it would be better to 
speak to Lady Jane herself than to relate my 
vague suspicions to any body else. Little 
Emilia, of all people, was so innocent and un- 
suspecting that I hesitated before I told her what 
I had seen. I was hesitating still, when Emmy 
took my arm again. 

Come!" she said; and so we went on to- 
gether through the darkening village street, 
past the cottages where the pans were shining 
against the walls as the kitchen fires flamed. 
The people began to disperse once more : some 
were at home, stooping as they crossed their 
low cottage thresholds ; others were walking 
away along the paths and the hills that slope 
from the village church to cottages by the sea. 
We saw Hester and Aileen and Hexham going 
off by tlie long way over the downs ; but no 
Lady Jane was with them. We were not far 
from home wljen Emilia stopped before a little 
rising mound by the roadside, on which a tuft- 
ed holly-tree was standing, already reddened 
against the winter. 

"That is the tree my husband likes," said 
she. " It was bright red with holly-berries the 
morning we were married. Little Bevvy watch- 
es the berries beginning to burn, as he calls it- 
I often, bring him here." 

Some people can not put themselves into 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



119 



words, and tliey say, not the actual thing they 
are feeling, but suniethiiig quite unlike, and 
yet which means all they would say. . Some 
other people, it is true, have words enough, 
but no selves to put to tliem. Emilia never 
said a striking thing, rarely a pathetic one ; but 
her commonplaces came often more near to me 
than the most passionate expressions of love or 
devotion. Something in tlie way she looked, 
in the tone with which she spoke of the holly- 
tree, touched me more than there seemed any 
occasion for. I can not tell what it was ; but 
this I do know, that silence, dullners, every 
thing, utters at times, the very stones cry out, 
and, in oue way or another, love finds a lan- 
guage that we all can understand. 

We stood for a few minutes under the holly- 
tree, and then walked quickly home. I let 
Emilia go in. I waited outside in the dim gray 
garden, pacing up and down in the twilight. 
Lady Jane, as I expected, arrived some ten 
minutes after we did ; but I missed the opportu- 
nity I had wished for, for Hexham and the two 
girls appeared almost at the same minute, with 
bright eyes and fresh rosy faces, from their walk, 
and we all went up to tea in the mistress's room. 

This was the Williams' last evening. Only 
one little incident somewhat spoiled its har- 
mony. 

" Who was that Captain Sigourney, who 
called just after we had gone to church ?"' Mrs. 
William asked innocently, during a pause in 
the talk at dinner. 

This simple question caused some of us to 
look up curiously. 

" Captain Sigourney," said Lady Jane, in a 
loud trumpet-like tone, " is a friend of mine. I 
asked him to call upon me." 

St. Julian gave one of his flashes, a look 
half amused, half angry. He glanced at his 
wife, and then at Lady Jane, who was cutting 
up her mutton into long strips, calmly excited 
and prepared for battle. St. Julian was silent, 
however, and the engagement, if engagement 
there was to be, did not take place until later 
in the evening. I felt very glad that the matter 
was taking tliis turn and that the absurd mys- 
tery, whatever it might be, should come to an 
end without my being implicated in it. It was 
no affair of mine if Lady Jane liked to have a 
dozen captains in attendance upon her, but it 
seemed to me a foolish proceeding. I had rea- 
son to conclude that St. Julian had said some- 
thing to Lady Jane that evening. I was not in 
the drawing-room after dinner. One of the 
servants was ill, and I was obliged to attend 
to her ; but as I was coming down to say good- 
night to them all I met Lady Jane — I met a 
whirlwind in the passage. She gave me one 
look. Her whole aspect was terrible : her 
chains and many trinkets seemed rattling with 
indignation. She looked quite handsome in her 
fury ; her red hair and false plaits seemed to 
stand on end, her eyes to pierce me through 
and through, and if I had been guilty I think I 
must have run away from this irate apparition. 



Do I dream it, or did I hear the two words, 
"impertinent interference," as she turned round 
with the air of an empress, and shut her door 
loud in my face ? Mrs. St. Julian happened 
to be in her room, and the noise brought her 
kind head out into the passage, and, not I am 
afraid very calmly or coherently, I told her what 
had happened. 

" I must try and appease her, I suppose my 
husband has spoken to her," said Mrs. St. Ju- 
lian ; and she boldly went and knocked at the 
door of Lady Jane's room, and, after an instant's 
hesitation, walked quietly in. I do not know 
what charm she used, but, somewhat to my dis- 
may, a messenger came to me in the drawing- 
room jiresently to beg that I would speak to 
Lady Jane. I saw malicious Aileen with a 
gleam of fun in her eyes at my unfeigned alarm. 
I found Lady Jane standing in the middle of 
the room, in a majestic sort of dressing-gown, 
with all her long tawny locks about her shoul- 
ders. Mrs. St. Julian was sitting in an arm- 
chair near the toilet-table, which was all glitter- 
ing with little bottles and ivory handles. This 
scarlet apparition came straight up to me as I en- 
tered, with three brisk strides. " I find I did you 
an injustice," she said, loftily relenting, though 
indignant still. " Mrs. St. Julian has explained 
matters to me. I thought you would be glad 
to know at once that I was aware of the mistake 
I had made. I beg your pardon. Good-evening, 
Mrs. Campbell," said Lady Jane dismissing me 
all of a breath. I found myself outside in the 
dark passage again, with a curious dazzle of the 
brilliantly lighted room, with its odd perfume 
of ottar of roses, of that weird apparition with 
its flaming robe and red hair and burning 
cheeks. 

I was too busy next morning helping Mrs. 
William and her children and boxes to get ofl^ 
by the early boat, to have much time to think 
of apparitions or my own wounded feelings. 
Dear little Georgy and Susey peeped out of the 
carriage-window with many farewell kisses. 
The three girls stood Avaving their hands as the 
carriage drove past the garden. The usual 
breakfast-bell rang and we all assembled, and 
Lady Jane, whose anger was never long-lived, 
came down in pretty good humor. To me she 
was most friendly. There was a shade of dis- 
pleasure in her manner to St. Julian. To Hex- 
ham she said that she had quite determined upon 
an expedition to Warren Bay that afternoon, 
and to the castle next day, and she hoped he 
would come too. Lady Jane bustled off" after 
breakfast to order a carriage. 



VII. 

Fkom "the mistress's room," with its corner 
windows looking out every way, we could see 
downs, and sea, and fields, and the busy road 
down to the shore. Mrs. St. Julian was able 
to be out so little that she liked life at second- 



120 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



liand, and the sit;ht of people passing, and of 
her children swinging at tlie gate, and of St. 
Julian as he came and went from his studio 
sometimes, with his pipe and his broad-brim- 
med hat — all this was a never-failing delight 
to her. Hester sat writing for her mother this 
morning. It was the Monday after Lady Jane's 
arrival, and I established myself witli my work 
in the window. Suddenly the mother asked, 
'■ Where is Emilia?" 

"Emilia is in the garden with Bevis,"said 
Hester; "they were picking red berries oil" the 
hedge when I came up." 

"And where is Lady Jane?" said Mrs. St. 
Julian. 

" She is gone to look at a pony-carriage, with 
her maid," said Hester. 

"Poor Lady Jane was very indignant last 
night. Yoii will be amnsed to hear that I am 
supposed to be encouraging a young man at this 
moment, for purposes of my own, to carry her 
off," said Mrs. St. Julian. "I am afraid Henry 
is vexed about it. Look here." As she spoke 
she gave me a satiny, flowingly written note to 
read. 

Castle Soud;imore, Saturday. 

Dear Mrs. St. Julian — I have been made 
aware that my step-daughter has been followed 
to your house by a person with whom I and her 
father are most anxious that she should have no 
communication ichatever. Whether this has 
happened with your cognizance I can not tell, 
but I shall naturally consider you responsible 
while she is under your roof, and I must beg 
you will be so good as not to continue to admit 
Captain Sigourney's visits. He is a person to- 
tally unsuitable in every respect to my step- 
daugliter, and it is a marriage her father could 
not sanction. 

I hope Emilia is well, and that she has had 
satisfactory accounts by this last mail. We re- 
ceived a few lines only, on business, from Bevis. 
Believe me, yours truly, 

E. MOUNTMORE. 

"The whole thing is almost too absurd to be 
vexed about," said Mrs. St. Julian, smiling. 

"Why was Lady Jane so angry with yon, 
Queenie ?" Hester asked ; and then it was I con- 
fessed what I had seen that evening on the 
Knoll. 

"Lady Jane told me all about it," my mis- 
tress continued. " She says Captain Sigour- 
ney's only object in life is to see her pass by. 
To tell you the truth, I do not think she cares 
in the least for him. She found him at the gate 
that evening, she says." JMrs. St. Julian hesi- 
tated, and then went on. " She must be very 
attractive. She tells me that she believes Mr. 
Hexham admires her very much, and that, on 
the whole, she thinks he is more the sort of per- 
son to suit her." Mrs. St. Julian spoke with a 
little gentle malice ; and yet I could see she 
half believed, and that there was prudence, too, 
in what she was saying. 

There was a pause. Hester looked straight 



before her, and I stitc hed on. At last tlie moth- 
er spoke again : — 

' ' I wish you would go to Emilia, my Hester," 
she said, a little anxiously. " I am afraid she 
is fretting sometimes when she is by herself." 

"You poor mamma," cried Hester, junii)ing 
up and running to her, and kissing her again 
and again; "you have all our pain and none 
of our fun." 

" Don't j'ou think so, my dear,'' said the 
mother; "I think I have both." Then she 
called Hester back to her, held her hand, and 
looked into her face tenderly for a minute. " Go, 
darling! — but — but take care," she said, as she 
let her go. 

"Take care of what, mamma?" the girl 
asked, a little consciously ; and then Hester ran 
off, as all young girls will do, nothing loath to 
get out into the sunshine. 

I stitched on at my work, but presently look- 
ing up I saw that Hester and Emilia were not 
alone ; Mr. Hexham, who had, I suppose, been 
smoking his cigar in the garden, had joined 
them. He was lifting Bevis high up overhead, 
to pick the berries that were shining in the 
hedge. The Lodges seemed built for pretty 
live ))ictures; and the mistress's room, most 
specially of all the rooms in the house, is a peep- 
show to see them from. Through this window, 
with its illuminated border of clematis and ivy 
and Virginian creeper, I could see the bit of gar- 
den lawn, green still and sunlit ; the two pretty 
sisters, in their flowing dresses, straight and 
slim, smiling at little Bevis; the high sweet- 
brier hedge, branching like a bower over their 
heads ; and the swallows skimming across the 
distant down. This w^as the most romaHtic 
window of the three which lighted her room, 
and I asked my cousin to come and see a pret- 
ty group. She smiled, and then sighed as she 
looked. Poor troubled mother! 

" I can not feel one moment's ease about Be- 
vis," she said. "My poor Emmy! And yet 
Lady Jane was very positive." 

"We shall know to-morrow. Yon are too 
anxious, I think," I answered cheerfully; and 
then I could not help asking her if she thought 
she should ever be as anxious about George 
Hexham. 

She did not answer except by a soft little 
smile. Then she sighed again. 

Lady Jane's expected letter had not come 
that Monday evening, but Mrs. St. Julian hoped 
on. Emilia was daily growing more anxious; 
she said very little, but every opening door 
startled her, every word seemed to her to have 
a meaning. She began to have a clear, ill-de- 
fined feeling that they were hiding something 
from her, and yet, poor little thing, she did not 
dare ask, for fear of getting bad news. Her soft, 
wan, appealing looks went to the very hearts of 
the people looking on. Lady Jane was the 
only person who could resist her. She was, or 
seemed to be, ruffled and annoyed that any one 
should be anxious when she had said there was 
no occasion for fear. Mrs. St. Julian would 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



121 



have quietly put off a certain expedition which 
liad been arranged some time before for the next 
day ; but Lady Jane, out of veiy opposition, was 
most eager and decided that it should take place. 
An invitation came for the girls to a ball ; this 
the parents decidedly refused, though Hexham, 
and Hester too, looked sorely disappointed. Of 
course Lady Jane knew no reason for any spe- 
cial anxiety, any more than Emilia, and perhaps 
her confidence and cheerfulness were the best 
medicine fur the poor young wife; who, seeing 
the sister so liright, began to think that she had 
over-estimated dangers which she only dimly felt 
and guessed at. So the carriages were ordered 
after luncheon; but the sun was shining bright 
in the morning, and Hexham asked Hester and 
Aileen (shyly, and hesitating as he spoke) if 
tliey would mind being photographed directly. 

"Why should you not try a group?" said 
St. Julian. "Here ai-e Hester, Lady Jane, 
Mona, Aileen, and Emilia, all wanting to be 
done at once." 

Emilia shrank back, and said she only wanted 
baby done, not herself. 

"I was longing to try a group, "said Hex- 
ham, " and only waiting for leave. How will 
you sit?" And he began placing them in a sort 
of row, two up and one down, with a property- 
table in the middle. He then began focusing, 
and presently emerged, pale and breathless and 
excited, from the little black hood into which 
he had dived. "Will you look?" said ho to 
St. Julian. 

"I think it might be improved upon," said 
St. Julian, getting interested. " Look up, Mona, 
— up, up. That is better. And can not you 
take the ribbon out of your hair?" 

"Yes, Uncle St. Julian," said Mona; "but 
it will all tumble down." 

"Never mind that," said he; and with one 
hand Mona pulled away the snood, and then 
the beautiful stream came flowing and rip])ling 
and falling all about her shoulders. 

" That is excellent," said the painter. " You, 
too, Aileen, shake out your locks." Then he 
began sending one for one thing and one for 
another. I was dispatched for some lilies into 
tlie garden, and Lady Jane came too, carrying 
little Bevis in her arms. When we got hack 
we found one of the prettiest sights I have ever 
yet seen — a dream of fair ladies against an ivy 
wall, flowers and flowing locks, and sweeping 
garments. It is imi)Ossible to describe the pe- 
culiar charm of this living, breathing picture. 
Emilia, after all, had been made to come into 
it ; little Bevis clapped his hands, and said, 
"Pooty mamma!" when he saw her. 

" I don't mind being done in the group," said 
Lady Jane, " if you will promise not to put any 
of those absurd white pinafores on me." 

Neither of the gentlemen answered, they were 
both too busy. As for me, I shall never forget 
the sweet child-wonder in my little Mona'sface, 
Hester's bright deep eyes, or my poor Emilia's 
patient and most affecting expression, as they 
all stood there motionless ; while He.xham held 



his watch, and St. Julian looked on almost as 
excited as the photographer. As Hexham 
rushed away into his van, with the glass under 
his arm, we all began talking again. 

" It takes one's breath away," said St. Julian, 
quiteexcited, "to have the picture there, breath- 
ing on the glass, and to feel every instant that 
it may vanish or dissolve with a word, with a 
breath. I should never have nerve for photog- 
ra])hy. " 

" I believe the great objection is that it black- 
ens one's fingers so," said Lady Jane. "I 
should have tried it myself, but I did not care 
to spoil my hands." 

As for the picture, Hexham came out wildly 
exclaiming from his little dark room ; never had 
he done any thing so strangely beautiful — he 
could not believe it^ — it was magical. The self- 
controlled young man was quite wild with de- 
light and excitement. Lord Ulleskelf walked 
up, just as we were all clustering round, and he, 
too, admired immensely. 

Hexham rushed up to St. Julian. "It is 
your doing," he said. " It is wonderful. My 
fortune is made." He all but embraced his 
precious glass. 

St. Julian was to be the next subject. What 
a noble wild head it was! There was some- 
thing human and yet almost mysterious to me 
in the flash of those pale circling eyes with the 
black brows and shaggy gray hair. But Hex- 
ham's luck failed him, perhaps from over-excite- 
ment and inexperience in success. Three or 
four attempts failed, and we were still at it when 
the luncheon-bell rang. Hexham was for going 
on all day ; but St. Julian laughed and said it 
should be another time. This sentiment was 
particularly approved by Lady Jane, who had a 
childish liking for expeditions and picnickings, 
and who had set her heart upon carrying out 
her drive that afternoon. 



VIII. 

Hexiiaji had known scarcely any thing be- 
fore this of home life or home peace. He had 
carefully treasured his liberty, and vowed to 
himself that he would keep that liberty always. 
But now that he had seen Hester, fair, and 
maidenly, and serene, he could not tell what 
mysterious sympathy had attracted him. To 
speak to her, to hear her shy tender voice, af- 
fected him strangely. George Hexham did not 
care to give way to sentimental emotion ; he felt 
that his hour had come. He had shared the 
common lot of men. It was a pity, perhaps, 
to give up independence and freedom and peace 
of mind, but no sacrifice was too great to win so 
dear a jirize. So said George to himself as he 
looked at the glass upon which her image was 
printed, the image with the wondering eyes. He 
must get one more picture, he thought, eating 
his luncheon thoughtfully, but with a good ap- 
petite undisturbed by these reflections — one 



122 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



more of Hester alone. He determined to try 
and keep lier at home that afternoon. 

He followed her as she left the room. 

"You are not going? Do stay," said Hex- 
ham, imploringly ; " I want yon ; I want a pic- 
ture of you all to myself. I told my man we 
should come back after luncheon." 

Hester colored up. Her mother's warning 
was still in her ears. 

" I — I am afraid I must go," she said shyly. 

" What nonsense !" cried Hexham, who was 
perfectly unused to contradiction, and excited 
by his success. " I shall go and tell your moth- 
er that it is horrible tyranny to send you off with 
that corvee of children and women, and that you 
want to stay behind. Lady Jane would stay if 
I asked her." 

Hester did not quite approve of this familiar 
way of speaking. She drew herself up more 
and more shyly and coldly. 

"No, thank you," she said, "mamma lets 
me do just as I like. I had rather go with the 
others." 

" In that case," said Hexham, offended, "I 
shall not presume to interfere." And he turn- 
ed and walked away. 

What is a difference ? A word that means 
nothing — a look a little to the right or to the 
left of an appealing glance. I think that peo- 
ple who quarrel are often as fond of one anoth- 
er as people Avho embrace. They speak a differ- 
ent language, that is all. Affection and agree- 
ment are things quite apart. To agree with the 
people you love is a blessing unspeakable. But 
poople who differ may also be travelling along 
the same road on opposite sides. And there are 
two sides to every road that both lead the same 
way. 

Hexham was so unused to being opposed that 
his indignation knew no bounds. He first 
tliought of remaining behind, and showing his 
displeasure by a haughty seclusion. But Lady 
Jane happened to drive up with Aileen in the 
pony-carriage she had hired, feathers flying, 
gauntleted, all prepared to go to conquer. 

"Won't you come with us, Mr. Hexham?" 
she said, in her most gracious tone. 

After a moment's hesitation, Hexham jump- 
ed in, for he saw Hester standing not far oft", 
and he began immediately to make himself as 
agreeable as he possibly could to his compan- 
ion. It was not much that happened this after- 
noon, but trifles show which way the wind is 
blowing. Lady Jane and her cavalier went 
first, the rest of us followed in Mr^. St. Julian's 
carriage. We were bound for a certain pretty 
bay some two miles off. The way there led 
across a wide and desolate warren, where sand 
and gorse spread on either side to meet a sky 
whose reflections always seemed to me saddened 
by the dark growth of this arid place. A broad 
stony military road led to a building on the 
edge of the elift' — a hotel, where the carriages 
put up. Then we began clambering down the 
side of the cliff, out of this somewhat dreary re- 
gion, into a world brighter and more lovely than 



have words to put to it — a smiling jdain of 
glassy blue sea, a vast firmament of heaven ; and 
close at hand briglit sandy banks, shining with 
streams of color reflected from the crystals and 
strata upheaved in shining strands ; and farther 
off the boats drifting towards the opal Broad- 
shire Hills. 

I do not suppose that any body seeing us 
strolling along these lovely cliffs would have 
guessed the odd and depressing influence that 
was at work upon most of us. As far as Lady 
Jane and Hexham and Aileen were concerned, 
the expedition seemed successful enough ; they 
laughed and chattered, and laughed again. 
Emilia and her sister followed, listening to their 
shrieks, in silence, with little Bevis between 
them. Mona and I brought up the rear. Lady 
Jane seemed quite well pleased with her com- 
panion, and evidently accepted his homage all 
to herself. I could have shaken her for being 
so stupid. Could she not see that not one single 
word lie spoke was intended for her. Every one 
of Hexham's arrows flew straight to the gentle 
heart for which they were intended. It was not 
a very long walk— perhaps half an hour in du- 
ration — but half an hour is long enough to 
change a lifetime, to put a new meaning to all 
that has passed, and to all that is yet to come. 
People may laugli at such a thing as desilhsion- 
neinent, but it is a very real and very bitter thing, 
for all that people may say. To some constant 
natures certainty and unchangeableness are the 
great charm, the whole meaning of love. Hes- 
ter, suddenly bewildered and made to doubt, 
would freeze, and change, and fly at a shadow ; 
where Hester, once certain, would endure all 
things, bear, and hope, and forgive. I could see 
that Hexham did not dislike a little excitement; 
Vimprevu had an immense charm for liim. He 
was rapid, determined ; so sure of himself that 
he could afford not to be sure of others. Hex- 
ham's tactics were very simple. He loved Hes- 
ter. Of this he had no doubt, but he had no 
idea of loving a woman as Shakspeare, for in- 
stance, was content to love, or at least to write 
of it — " Being your slave, what should I do but 
wait?" This was not in Hexham's philosoph}-. 
Hester had offended him, and he had been snub- 
bed ; he would show her his indifference, and 
punish her for his punishment. 

We were all on our way back to the carriages 
when Hester stopped suddenly at a little zigzag 
path leading down to the sands, down which 
Mona and 1 had been scrambling. " Do you 
think Bevvy could get down here ?" she asked. 
" Do let us go down, Emilia. I think we have 
time ; the carriages are not yet ready." 

Emilia, although frightened out of her wits, 
instantly assented, and Mona and I watched Hes- 
ter springing from rock to rock and from step 
to step. She lifted Bevis safe down the steep 
side ; little falling stones and shells and sands 
went showering on to the shingle below ; a sea- 
gull came out of a hole in the sand, and flew 
out to sea. Bevvy screamed with delight. 
Hester's quick light step seemed eveiy where ; 



EROM AN ISLAND. 



123 



she put him safe down below, and then sprang 
up again to her sister's help. The little ex- 
citement acted like a tonic. "How pretty it is 
here!" she said. 

We had sat for some ten minutes under tlie 
wing of the great cliff, in an arch or hollow, 
lined with a slender tracery of granite lines 
close following one another. The arching 
ridge of the cliff cut the high line of blue sea 
sharply into a curve. 

"It was like a desert island," Hester said, 
looking at the little cove inclosed in its mighty 
walls, with the smooth unfurrowed crescent of 
shingle gleaming and shining, and the white, 
light little waves rushing against the stones ; 
" an island upon which we had been wrecked." 

"An island," I thought to myself, "no Hex- 
ham had as yet discovered." I wondered how 
long it would be desert ? 

Mona, tired of sitting, soon wandered off, and 
disappeared at the side of tlie cliff. I do not 
know how long we should have staid there if 
little Bevis, who had never yet heard of a desert 
island, and who thought people always all lived 
together, and that it was naughty to be shy, 
and that he was getting very hungry, and that 
he had better cry a little, had not suddenly set 
up a shrill and imperious demand for his din- 
ner, his"'ome,"as lie called it, Toosan his 
nurse, and his rocking-horse. Emilia jumped 
up, and Hester too. 

"It must be time for us to go," said Mrs. 
Beverley. 

It is generally easier to clinab up than to de- 
scend, and so it would have been now for Hes- 
ter alone. I do not know why the sun-beaten 
path seemed so hard, the blocks of stone so 
loose and crumbling. Hester went first, with 
Bevis in her arms, and at first got on pretty 
well ; but for some reason or other— perhajjs 
that in coming down we had disturbed the 
stones — certainly as she went on her footsteps 
seemed less rapid and lucky than they usually 
were. She stumbled, righted herself, took an- 
other step, Bevis clinging tight to her neck. 
Emilia cried out, frightened. Hester, a little 
nervous, put Bevvy on a big stone, and stood 
breathless for an instant. "Come up, Em- 
my," she said; "this way — there, to that next 
big step." Emmy did her best, but before she 
could catch at Hester's extended hand her foot 
slipped again, and she gave another little 
scream. 

" Hester, help me!" 

I was at some little' distance. I bad tried a 
little independent track of my own, which 
proved more impracticable than I had expected. 
It was in vain I tried to get to Emilia's assist- 
ance. There was no real danger for Emilia, 
clinging to a big granite boulder fixed in the 
sand, but it was absurd and not pleasant. The 
sun baked upon the sandy paths. Hester told 
Bevvy to sit still while she went to help mamma. 
" No, no, no," cried little Bevis when his aunt 
attempted to leave him, clutching at her with a 
sudden spring, wliich nearly overset her. It 



was at this instant that I saw, to my inexpressible 
relief, two keen eyes peering over the edge of 
the cliff, and Hexham coming down the little 
path to our relief. 

"I could not think where you bad got to," 
he said ; " I came back to see. Will you take 
hold of my stick, Mrs. Beverley ? I will come 
back for the boy, Miss St. Julian." Hexham 
would have returned a third time for Hester, 
but she was close behind him, and silently re- 
jected his proffered help. George Hexham 
turned away in silence. Hester was already 
scarcely grateful to him for coming back at all. 
He had spoken to her, but her manner had 
been so cold, his voice so hard, that it seemed 
as if indeed all was over between them. Hes- 
ter was no gentle Griselda, but a tender and yet 
imperious princess, accustomed to confer favors 
and to receive gratitude from her subjects. 
Here was one who had revolted from her alle- 
giance. 

****** 

(Fragment of a letter found in Mr. Hexham's 
room after his departure :) 

.... A little bit of the island is shining 
through my open glass-pane. I see a green 
field with a low hedge, a thatched farm, woods, • 
flecks of shade, a line of down rising from the 
frill of tiie muslin blind to the straggling branch 
of clematis that has been put to grow round my 
window. It is all a nothing compared to real- 
ly beautiful scenery, and yet it is every thing 
when one has once been conquered by the 
charm of the place — the still, sweet influence 
of its tender lights, its charming humility and 
unpretension, if one can so speak of any thing 
inanimate. It is six o'clock ; the sky is patch- 
ed and streaked with gray and yellowish clouds 
upon a faint sunset aquamarine ; a wind from the 
sea is moving tln-ough tlie clematis and making 
the light tendrils dance and swing ; a sudden un- 
expected gleam of light has worked enchantment 
with the field and tlie farmstead, the straw is 
aflame, the thatch is golden, the dry stubble is 
gleaming. A sense of peace and evening and 
rest comes over me as I write and look from my 
window. This sort of family life suits me. I 
do not find time lieavy on my hands. St. Ju- 
lian is a lucky fellow to be the ruler of such a 
pleasant dominion. I never saw any thing 
more charmingly pretty than its boundaries 
studded with scarlet berries, and twisted twigs, 
with birds starting and flying across the road, 
almost under our horses' feet, as we came along. 
I am glad I came. Old St. Julian is as ever 
capital company, and the most hospitable of 
hosts. Mrs. St. Julian is an old love of mine : 
she is a sweet and gracious creature. 'This is 
more than I can say of my fellow-guest. Lady 
Jane Beverley, who is the most overpowering of 
women. I carefully keep out of her w.ay, but I 
can not always escape her. Hester St. Julian 
is very like her mother, but witli something of 
St. Julian's strength of character — she has al- 
most too much. She was angry with me to- 
day. Perhaps I deserved it. I hope she has 



12-t 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



forgiven me l\y this time, for I, to tell the truth, 
can not atford to quarrel witli her. 

Lord UUeskelf is here a good deal ; his long 
white hair is more silvers' than ever ; he came 
up this morning to see my photography ; I wish 
you had been standing by to see our general 
eagerness and excitement ; the fact is, that here 
in this island the simplest emotions seem in- 
tensified and magnified. Its very stillness and 
isolation keep us and our energies from over- 
passing its boundaries. I have been here two 
days — I feel as if I had spent a lifetime in the 
place, and were never going away any more, 
and as if the world all about was as visionary 
as the gray Broadshire Hills that we see from 
High Down. As for certain old loves and in- 
terests that you may have known of, I do not 
believe they ever existed, except upon paper. 
If I mistake not, I have found an interest here 
more deep than any passing fancy. 



IX. 

The day had begun well and brightly, but 
'there was ajar in the music that evening which 
was evident enough to most of ns. We had all 
been highly wrought from one cause and an- 
other, and this may have accounted for some 
natural reaction. For one thing, we missed 
William and his family ; tiresome as Mrs. Wil- 
liam undoubtedly was, her jdacid monotone 
harmonized with the rest of the performance, 
for though she was ])rosy, she was certainly 
sweet-tempered, and the children were charm- 
ing. It had seemed like the beginning of the 
summer's end to see them drive oft"; little hands 
waving and rosy faces smiling good-bye. Poor 
Mona was in despair, and went to bed early. 
Lady Jane sat looking still black and offended 
with her host in her corner; sometliing had oc- 
casioned a renewed access of indignation. Mrs. 
St. Julian did her very best to propitiate her 
indignant guest, but the poor lady gave up try- 
ing at last, and leaned back in her chair weari- 
ly, and closed her eyes. I myself was haunted 
by the ill-defined feeling of something amiss — 
of trouble present or at hand. Hester, too, was 
out of spirits. It was evident that she and Mr. 
Hexham had not quite forgiven each other for 
the morning's discussion. Altogether, it was a 
dismal disjointed evening, during which a new 
phase of Hexham's character was revealed to 
us, and it was not the best or the kindest. 
There was a hard look in his handsome face and 
skeptical tone in his voice. He seemed possess- 
ed by what the French call resprit moquenr. 
Hester, pained and silenced at last, would 
scarcely answer him when lie spoke. Her fa- 
ther with an effort got up and took a book and 
began to read something out of one of Words- 
worth's sonnets. It is always delightful to me 
to hear St. Julian read. His voice rolled and 
thrilled through the room, and we were all si- 
lent for a moment : — 



Thy soul W.1S like a star, and dwelt .ipavt, 
Thou had St a voice whose sound was like the sea. 

' ' I hate Wordsworth. He is always preach- 
ing to one," said Hexham, not very politely, as 
St. Julian ceased reading. "I never feel so 
wicked as when I am being preached to." 

" I am sorry for you," said St. Julian dryly. 
"I have never been able to read this passage 
of Wordsworth without emotion since I was a 
boy, and first found it in my school-books." 

Hester had jumped up and slipped out of the 
room while this discussion was going on ; I fol- 
lowed presently, for I remembered a little bit 
of work which St. Julian had asked us to see to 
that evening. 

He used sometimes to give me work to do for 
him, although I was not so clever as Hester in 
fashioning and fitting the things he wanted for 
his models ; but I did my best, and between us 
we had produced some very respectable coiffes, 
wimples, slashed bodices, and other bygone ele- 
gances. We had also concocted an Italian 
peasant, and a mediajval princess, and a dear 
little Dutch girl — our triumph. I found I had 
not my materials at hand, and I went to the 
studio to look for them. I was looking for a 
certain piece of silken stuff which I thought I 
had seen in the outer studio, and which my 
cousin had asked me to stitch together so as to 
make a cloak. I turned the things over and 
over, but I could not discover what I was in 
quest of among the piles and heaped-up proper- 
ties that were kept there. I supposed it must 
be in the inner room, and I lifted the curtain 
and went in. I had expected to find the place 
dark, and silent, and empty. But the room was 
not dark. The wood-fire was burning ; the tall 
candles were lighted ; the pictures on the walls 
were reflecting the light, and looking almost 
alive, crowding there, and gazing with those 
strange living eyes tliat St. Julian knew so well 
how to paint ; a statesman in his robe ; a mu- 
sician leaning against the wall, drawing his bow 
across the strings of his violin. As I looked at 
him in the stream of the fire-flame, I almost ex- 
pected to hear llie conquering sound of the 
wailing melody. But he did not play ; he seem- 
ed to me to be waiting, and looking out, and 
listening to other music than his own. All 
these pictures were so familiar to us all as we 
came and went, that we often scarcely paused 
to look at them. But to-night, in the firelight, 
they impressed me anew with a sense of admira- 
tion for the wonderful power of the man who had 
produced them. Over the chimney hung a poet, 
noble and simple and kingly, as St. Julian had 
painted him. Next to the poet was the head of 
a calm and beautiful woman, bending in a 
stream of light. It was either Emilia or her 

mother in her youth An evangelist, 

with a grand, quiet brow and a white flood of 
silver beard, came next ; and then warriors, and 
nobles, and maidens with flowing hair. They 
seemed almost touched to life to-night. Hester 
was standing underneath the picture of the 
evangelist, a real living picture. Her head was 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



12-] 



leaning wearily against the wall. She had come 
in before me, and seemed standing in a dreary 
way, with hanging hands. The silk stuffs she 
had collected were on the ground at her feet, 
and the pattern cloak was hanging from a chair ; 
but she had thrown her work away. I don't 
know why, unless it was that her eyes were full 
of great tired tears that she was trying vainly 
to keep back. 

" My dear," I said, frightened ; " my dear, 
what is it ? What has happened ? Has he 
vexed you ?" I hated myself the next instant. I 
had spoken hastily and witiiout reflection. My 
question upset her ; she struggled for a minute, 
and then burst out crying, though she was a 
brave girl — courageous, and not given to use- 
less complaints. Then she looked up, flushing 
crimson reproach at me. " It is not what you 
seem to think," she said. "Don't you know 
me better? It is something — I don't know 
what. How foolish I am !" And this time, 
with an effort, she conquered her tears. "Oh 
Queenie !" she said, "I know there is some- 
thing wrong ; some terrible news. I don't dare 
ask, for they have not told me ; and I don't, 
don't dare ask," she repeated. I was silent, for 
she was speaking the thought which had been 
in my own heart of late. At last I said, " One 
has foolish, nervous frights at times. What 
makes you so afraid, Hester ?" 

Hester smiled faintly, with her tear-dinimed 
face. 

"There .has been another absurd and pro- 
voking scene," she said, " with Lady Jane. 
Something she said of anxiety, and a letter, 
and — and — I don't know what friglitened me," 
said Hester, faltering. " She said she would 
go immediately, that she should marry, meet, 
write, invite any body she chose, and that if it 
were not for this anxiety for Emilia — some let- 
ter she expected — she would leave us that in- 
stant ; and then my niurlier stopped her, and 
that is all I know," said Hester, with a great 
sigh. " It is not worth crying for, is it, Queen- 
ie ?" 

As she spoke the door opened and St. Julian 
and Hexham came in to smoke their evening 
pipes. Hester drew herself up with bright 
flushed cheeks and said a liaughty good-night 
to Hexham as she passed him. But in my 
heart I thought more than one doubt had 
caused Hester's tears to flow that night. 

Hexham seemed unconscious enough. " I 
shall be quite ready for sitters to-morrow morn- 
ing. Miss Hester," said the proA'oking young 
man, cheerfully. "You won't disappoint me 
again ?" 

Hester did not answer, and walked out of the 
room. 

Hexham tried to persuade himself next day 
that he had made it all right with Hester over- 
night. He had come down late and had miss- 
ed her at breakfast, but he made sure she would 
not fail him, and he got ready his chemicals and 
kept telling himself that she would come. The 
glasses were polished bright, and in their places. 



Every thing was as it should be, he thought ; 
the sun was shining as photographers wish it to 
shine. Once, hearing steps, Hexham turned 
hastily, but it was only St. Julian on his way 
to his studio ; Lady Jane went by presently ; 
then it was Lord JJlleskelf who passed by ; and 
each time Hexham felt more aggrieved and dis- 
appointed. Hexham came to me twice as I 
sat at work in the drawing-room window, but 
1 did not know where Hester had gone, or if 
she meant to sit to him. Little Mona went by 
last of all. The child had her hands full of 
grasses that I had sent her to gather. She went 
wandering on between the garden beds with a 
little busy brain full of pretty fancies, strange 
fairy-dreams and stories of a world in which 
she was living apart from us all. It was an 
enchanted world, a court where lords and ladies 
were doing stately obeisance to a fairy Queen 
in the lily-bed. The tall pampas grasses waved 
over my little maiden's head and bowed their 
yellow flowers in the wind. The myrtles glim- 
mered mysteriously, the tamarisks drooped their 
fringed stems, wind-blown shrubs shivered and 
shook, while a woodpecker from the outer world 
who had ventured into fairy realms was labori- 
ously climbing the stem of a slender elm-tree. 
Hexham asked Mona if she knew where Hes- 
ter was, and the child, waking up, pointed to 
the house : " She was there, at work for Uncle 
Henry, in the housekeeper's room, as I passed," 
said Mona. 

Hexham was, as I have said, a young man 
of an impatient humor. He was a little hard, 
as young men are apt to be. But there was 
something reassuring in his very hardness and 
faith in himself and his own doings — reassur- 
ing because it was a genuine expression of 
youthful strength and power. No bad man 
could have had that perfect confidence which 
marked most of George Hexham's sayings and 
doings. His was, after all, the complacency of 
good intentions. 

He had taken it as a matter of course, not 
only that Hester would come, but that she 
would come with a feeling not unlike the feel- 
ing with which he was expecting her. He could 
not understand her absence, her continued cold- 
ness. What did it mean? did it, could it mean 
that she was unconscious of his admiration ? 
It had suddenly become a matter of utter con- 
sequence to the young man that he should find 
her now, reproach her, read her face, and dis- 
cover why she had thwarted him. He might 
see her all day and at any hour, and yet this 
was the hour he had set apart as his own — 
when he wanted her — the hour he had looked 
forward to and counted on and longed for. He 
came to me a third time, and asked me if I 
would take a message for him. I was a little 
sorry for him, although I thought he deserved 
this gentle punishment. 

"If you will come with me vre will go and 
look for her," I said. 

"You are doing me an immense kindness,"' 
cried Hexham, gratefully. 



126 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



The lionsckecper's room could be entered by 
the court-yard : it was next to the outer studio, 
into which it led by a door. It was used for 
models and had been taken from the servants. 
As Mona had said, Hester was sitting in the 
window at work when we Ciwne in ; the door 
into the studio was open, and I heard voices of 
people talking within. 

Hester's needle flew along in a sort of rhyth- 
mic measure. She knew Hexham had come 
in with me, but she did not look up, only work- 
ed on. Poor Hester! her heart was too heavy 
for blushes or passing agitations. Hexham had 
wounded her and disappointed her, but, young 
as she was, the girl had a sense of the fitness 
of things which kept her from betraying all she 
felt ; and, indeed, this great unaccountal)le feel- 
ing of anxiety now occupied most thoughts and 
feelings, except those to which she would not 
own. George Hexliam stood with a curious 
face, full of anger and sympathy and compunc- 
tion, watching her stitches as they flew. One, 
two, three, he counted, and the quaint little 
garment turned and twisted in her pale hands. 
Once she looked up at him. It would have 
been better if she had looked reproachful ; 
but no, it was a grave cold glance she gave, 
and then her head bent down once more over 
her work. I left them to their own explana- 
tions, and went back to my drawing-room win- 
dow. 

Afterward Hester told me how angry she 
was with me for bringing him. 

" Have you nearly done ? May I talk to you 
Avhen you have finished that stitching?" he 
said to her presently. 

"I can listen while I woi'k," said Hester, 
still sewing, and if she paused it was only to 
measure the seams upon the little model for 
whom they were intended. 

That needle flying seemed to poor Hexham 
an impassable barrier — a weapon wielded by this 
Amazon that he could not overcome. It kept 
him at arms' lengtli ; it absorbed her attention ; 
she scarcely listened to what he said, as she 
stuck and threaded and travelled along the 
strange little garment. He found himself 
counting the stitches — one, two, three, four, 
five, six, seven, eight — ^it was absurd; it was 
like an enchantment. 

"Hester," cried Hexham, "you won't un- 
derstand me !" Hester worked on and did not 
answer. His voice was quick, passionate, and 
agitated. " You are so calm," he cried. " I 
do not believe the common weaknesses of life 
touch you in the least, or that you ever know 
how to make any allowance for others." 

"I can make allowance," faltered Hester, 
as with trembling hands she stooped and began 
tying on the child's little garm.ent. 

To Hexham's annoyance, at that moment St. 
Julian appeared. 

"You here, Hexham ? Come and see Lord 
Ulleskelf. Is the child ready?" he asked. 
" That is right ;" and he led off the little girl, 
in her funny Velasquez dress, trotting along to 



his long quick strides. Hexham followed them 
to the door, and tlien turned back slowh*. 

Hester had sunk wearily in the chair in 
which she had been sitting, leaning her head 
upon her hand. She thought it was all over; 
Hexham was gone. " She did not care," she 
said to herself; as people say they do not care, 
when they know in tiieir heart of hearts that 
tliey have but to speak to call a welcome an- 
swering voice, to put out their hand for another 
hand to grasp. They do not say so when all 
is really gone, and there is no answer any where. 
Sometimes she softened, but Hester was indig- 
nant to think of the possibility of having been 
laughed at and made a play of when she herself 
had come with a heart trusting and true and 
tender. He could not care for Lady Jane, but 
he had ventured to say more than he really felt 
to Hester herself. Now it seemed to her that 
the whole aim and object of her care should be 
to prevent Hexham from guessing what she had 
foolishly fancied — Hexliam, who had come back, 
and who was standing looking with keen doubt- 
ful glances into her face. She turned her two 
clear inscrutable eyes upon him once more, and 
tried to meet his gaze quietly, but her eyes fell 
beneath his. 

" Hester," he said once again, and stopped 
short, hearing a step at the door. Poor Hester 
blushed up crimson with blushes that she blushed 
for again. Had she betrayed herself? Ah, 
no, no! She started up. "I must go," she 
said. All ! she would go to her father. There 
was love, tender and generous love, to shield, 
to protect, to help her ; not love like this, that 
was but a play, false, cruel, ready to wound. 

" Dear Hester, don't go! Stay!" Hexham 
entreated, as she began to move toward the 
door leading to her fatlier's studio. He had 
not chosen his time well, poor fellow, for Lady 
Jane, who was still in the outer studio, hearing 
his voice, came to the door, looked in for one 
instant, and turned away with an odd expres- 
sion in her face and a brisk shrug of the shoul- 
ders. They both saw her. Hester looked up 
once again, with doubtful, questioning eyes, and 
then there was a minute's silence. Hexham 
understood her : a minute ago he had been gen- 
tle, now her doubts angered him. 

"Why are yon so hard to me?" he burst out 
at last, a little indignantly, and thoroughly in 
earnest. "How can you suppose I have ever 
fancied that odious woman? Will you believe 
me, or not, when I tell you how truly and de- 
votedly I love and admire you? You are the 
only woman I have ever seen whom I would 
make my wife. If you send me away, you will 
crush all that is best and truest in my nature, 
and destroy my only chance of salvation." 

" TJiis is not the way to speak," said Hester, 
gravely, with a beating heart. His hardness 
frightened her, as her coldness and self-control 
angered him ; and yet he could not quite forget 
her sudden emotion of a moment before. It 
was a curious reluctant attraction that seemed 
to unite these two people, who loved each other, 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



127 



and yet were cold ; and who, like a pair of chil- j 
dren as they were, were playing with their best i 
chance of happiness, and willfully putting it | 
away. They stood looking at each other, 
doubtful still, excited, at once angry and gentle. 

"How can I trust you," said proud Hester, 
coldly still, " after yesterday ?— after— no, you 
do not really cai'e for me, or — " 

It was, I think, at that moment that they 
heard a sort of low stifled scream from outside, 
and then hasty footsteps. Hester started. 
' ' Was that Lady Jane ?" she said. " Oh, what 
is it ? Oh, has it come ?" Unnerved, e.xcited, 
she put up her two hands nervously, and in- 
stinctively turning to Hexham for help. 

" My dearest," said Hexham, melting, utterly 
forgetting all her coldness, thinking only of 
lier — "what is it — what do you fear?" and as 
lie spoke he kept her back for one instant by 
tlie two trembling hands, grasping them firmly 
in his own 

No other word was spoken, but from that 
moment they felt that they belonged to each 
other. 

" I don't know Avhat I fear, " she said. " Oh, 
come, come !" 



X. 

Lady Jane had walked angrily out through 
the studio door into the garden. Her temper 
had not been improved by a disagreeable scold- 
ing letter from Lady Monntmore which had 
just been put into her hand. It contained the 
long-looked-for scrap from Bevis, which his fa- 
ther had forwarded. Lady Jane was venting 
a certain inward indignation in a brisk walk up 
and down the front of the house, when Lord 
Ulleskelf came toward her. 

"Are you coming this afternoon to explore 
the castle with us ?"*she asked. " I believe we 
are all going — that is, most of us. Aileen and 
Mona have gone off with my maid in the 
coach." 

lie shook his head. "No," he said. "And 
I think if it were not for the children's sake you 
none of you would much care to go. But I 
suppose it is better to live on as usual and make 
no change to express the hidden anxieties which 
must trouble us all at times." 

"Well, I must say I think it is very ridicu- 
lous," said Lady Jane, who was thoroughly out 
of temper. ' ' These young wives seem to think 
that they and their husbands are of so much 
consequence, that every convulsion of life and 
nature must combine to injure tliem and keep 
them apart." 

Lord Ulleskelf had spoken forgetting that 
Lady Jane was quite ignorant of their present 
cause for alarm. He was half indignant at 
what he thought utter want of feeling, half con- 
vinced by Lady Jane's logic. He had first 
known St. Julian at Rome, years before, and 
had been his friend all his life. He admired 
his genius, loved the girls, and was devoted to 



the mother : any trouble which befell them came 

home to him almost as a personal matter 

"It is perfectly absurd," the young lady went 
on. " We have heard at home all was well ; 
and I can not sympathize with this mawkish sen- 
tim'fentality. I hate humbug. I'm a peculiar 
character, and I always dislike much ado about 
nothing. I am something of a stoic." 

" You heard by this mail ?" said Lord Ulles- 
keif, anxiously. 

" Of course we did," said Lady Jane. "I 
had written to my father to send me the letter. 
Here it is." And she put it into his hand. 
They had walked on side by side, and come 
almost iij front of the house, with its open win- 
dows. Lady Jane was utterly vexed and put 
out. Hexham's look of annoyance when she had 
come in upon them a minute before was the last 
drop in her cup, and she now went on, in her 
jerky way :— 

"Emilia is all very well ; but really I do pity 
poor Bevis if this is the future in store for him — 
an anxious wife taking fright at every shadow. 
Mrs. St. Julian only encourages her in her want 
of self-control. It is absurd." 

Lord Ulleskelf, who had been examining the 
letter with some anxiety, folded it up. He was 
shocked and overcome. He confessed to me 
afterward that he thought there was no neces- 
sity for sparing the feelings of a young lady so 
well able as Lady Jane to bear anxiety and to 
blame the over-sensitiveness of others. The 
letter was short, and about money affairs. In a 
postscript to the letter, Bevis said : "Da Costa 
and Dubois want me to join a shooting expedi- 
tion ; but I shall not be able to get away." This 
was some slight comfort, though to Lord Ulles- 
kelf it only seemed a confirmation of his worst 
■fears. 

" It is not a shadow, " he said, gravely. ' ' If 
you like to look at this " — and he took a folded 
newspaper out of his pocket — "you will see 
wh}' we have been so anxious for poor Emmy. 
Some one sent me a French paper, in which a 
paragraph had been copied from the Rio paper, 
containing an account of an accident to some 
young Englishman there. I have now, with 
some difficulty, obtained the original paper itself, 
with fuller particulars. You will see that this 
translation is added. I need not ask you to 
spare Mrs. Bevis a little longer, while the news 
is uncertain. The accident happened on the 2d, 
four days before the steamer left. This letter 
is dated the 30th August, and must have been 
written before the accident happened." 

He turned away as he spoke, and left her 
standing there, poor woman, in the blaze of 
sunshine. Lady Jane never forgot that minute. 
The sea washed in the distance, a flight of birds 
flew overhead, the sun poured down. She stamp- 
ed upon the crumbling gravel, and then, with an 
odd choked sort of cry — hearing some of them 
coming— fairly ran into the house and up stairs 
and along the passage into the mistress's room, 
of which the door happened to be open. 

This was the cry which brought Hester and 



128 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



Hexham out into the yard. I was in the draw- 
ing-room, when Lord Ulleskelf came in hurried- 
ly, looking very much disturbed. 

" Mrs, Camjibell, for Heaven's sake go to 
Lady Jane !" he cried. " Do not let her alarm 
Emilia. I have been most indiscreet — nAieh 
to blame. Pray go." 

I put down my work and hurried up stairs as 
he told me. As I went I could hear poor Lady 
Jane's sobs. I had reached the end of the 
gallery when I saw a door open, and a figure 
running toward the mistress's room. Then I 
knew I was too late, for it was Emmy, who from 
her mother's bedroom had also heard the cry. 

" Mamma, something is wrong," said Emilia, 
" hold Bevvy for me !" And before Jjer mother 
could prevent her, she had put the child in lier 
arms and run along the passage to see what 
was the matter. 

How shall I tell the cruel pang which was 
waiting for her, running up unconscious to meet 
the stab ! Lady Jane was sitting crying on Mrs. 
St. Julian's little sofa. ■ When she saw Emmy 
she lost all presence of mind : she cried out, 
"Don't, don't come, Emmy! — not you — not 
you!" Then jumping up she seized the news- 
paper and ran out of the room ; but the trans- 
lation Lord Ulleskelf had written out fell on the 
floor as she left, and poor frightened Emilia, fear- 
ing every thing, took it up eagerly. 

I did not see this — at least I only remem- 
bered it afterward, for poor Lady Jane, meet- 
ing me at the door, seized hold of my arm, say- 
ing, "Go back, go back! Oh, take me to St. 
Julian !" The poor thing was quite distraught 
for some minutes. I took her to her room and 
tried to quiet her, and then I went, as she asked 
me, to look for my cousin. I ran down by the 
back w.ay and the little staircase to the studio.' 
It was empty, except that the little model and 
her mother were getting ready to go. The gen- 
tleman was gone, the child said : he had told 
her to come back next day. She was putting 
off her little quaint cloak, with her mother's 
help, in a corner of the big room. I hurried 
back to the house. On the stairs I found Hes- 
ter, with her companion, and my mistress at the 
head of the stairs. Hester and Ilexham both 
turned to me, and my mistress eagerly asked 
whether I had found St. Julian. I do not know 
how it was — certainly at the time I could not 
have described what was happening before my 
eyes ; but afterward, thinking things over, I 
seemed to see a phantasmagoria of the events 
of the day passing before my eyes. I seemed 
to see the look of motherly sympathy and l)enc- 
diction with whicli, in all her pain for Emilia, 
Mrs. St. Julian turned to her Hester. I don't 
know if the two young folks had spoken to her. 
They were standing side by side, as people who 
had a right to one another's help ; and after- 
ward, when I was alone, Hester's fitce came 
before me, sad, troubled, and yet illumined by 
the radiance of a new-found light. 

I suppose excitement is a mood which stamps 
events clearly marked and well defined upon our 



minds. I think for the most part our lives are 
more wonderful, sadder, and brighter, more 
beautiful and picturesque, than we have eyes to 
see or ears to understand, except at certain mo- 
ments when a crisis comes to stir slow hearts, 
to brighten dim eyes to sight, and dull ears to 
the sounds that vibrate all about. So it is witli 
happy people, and lookers-on at the history of 
others : for those who are in pain a merciful 
shadow falls at first, hiding, and covering, and 
tenipering the cruel pangs of fear and passion- 
ate regret. 



XL 

EsBiY read the paper quite quietly, in a sort 
of dream : this old crumpled paper, lying on the 
table, in which she saw her husband's name print- 
ed. Her first thought was, why had they kept 
it from her ? Here was news, and they had not 
given it, Bevis Beverley ! She even stopped 
for an instant to think what a pretty, strange 
name it was ; stopped willfully, witli that sort 
of instinct we all have when we will not realize 
to ourselves that something of ill to those we 
love is at hand. Then she began to read, and 
at first she did not quite understand. A shoot- 
ing-party had gone up the Parana River; the 
boat was supposed to have 'overturned. The 
names, as well as they could gatlier, were as 
follows : — Don Manuel da Costa, Mr. P. Dubois, 
Mr. Bevis Beverley of the Englisli Embassy, Mr. 
Stanmore, and Seiior Antonio de Caita — of 
whom not one had been saved. Emilia read it 
once quietly, only her heart suddenly began to 
beat, and the room to swim round and round ; 
but even in the bewildering circles she clutched 
the paper and forced herself to read the dizzy 
words again. At first she did not feel very 
much, and even for an instant her mind glanced 
off to something else — to' her mother waiting 
down below with little Bevis in her lap — then a 
' great dark cloud began to descend quietly and 
i settle upon the poor little woman, blotting out 
1 sunlight and landscape and color. Emilia lost 
mental consciousness as the darkness closed in 
upon her, not bodily consciousness. She had a 
j dim feeling as if some one had drawn a curtain 
across the window, so she told me afterward. 
She was sitting in her mother's room, this she 
knew ; but a terrible, terrible trouble was all 
: about her, all around, every where, echoing in 
the darkness, and cold at her iieart. Bevis, 
she wanted Bevis or her mother: they could 
j send it away ; and with a great effort she cried 
out, "Mamma! mamma!" And at that in- 
I stant somebody who had been talking to her, 
j but Avhom she had not heeded, seemed to say, 
I " Here she is," and in a minute more her moih- 
1 er's tender arms were round her. and Emilia, 
coming to herself again, looked up into that ten- 
I der, familiar face. 
I "My darling," said the mother, "you must 



hope, and trust, and be brave. Nothing is con- 
firmed ; we must pray and love one another, 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



129 



and have faith in a heavenly mercy. If it had 
been certain, do you think I should have kept it 
from you all this time?" 

"How long?" said the parched lips; and 
Emilia turned in a dazed way from Mrs. St. 
Julian to Lady Jane, who had come back, and 
who was standing by with an odd, startled face, 
looking as pale almost as Emmy herself. 

" Oh, Emmy, dear, dear Emmy, don't believe 
it : we have had a letter since. I shall never 
forgive myself as long as I live— never ! I left 
it out ; that hateful paper. Oh dear ! Oh dear! 
Oh dear!" sobbed poor Lady Jane, once more 
completely overcome, as she sank into a chair 
and hid her face in her hands. 

Little Emilia made a great effort. She got 
up from her seat with a piteous look ; she went 
up to her sister-in-law and put her hand on her 
shoulder. "Don't cry, Jane," she said, trem- 
bling very much. " Mamma says there is hope ; 
and Bevis said I was to try and make the best 
of things. I had rather know," said poor Emi- 
lia, turning sick and pale again. "May I see 
your letter?" 

Lady Jane was almost overawed by the gen- 
tle sweetness of these two women. 

" How can you think of me just now? Oh 
Emilia! I — I don't deserve it!" And she got 
up and a second time rushed out of the room. 

Emmy's wonderful gentleness and self-con- 
trol touched me more than I can express. She 
did not say much more, but went back to her 
mother, and knelt down and buried her face in 
her knees in a childish attitude, kneeling there 
still and motionless, while all the bright light 
came trembling and shining upon the two bent 
heads, and the sound of birds and of bleating 
sheep and shouting children came in at the 
open windows, t thought they were best alone, 
and left them, shutting the door. The house 
was silent and empty of the life which belonged 
to it, only it seemed to me crowded to suffoca- 
tion by this great trouble and anxiety. This 
uncertainty was horrible. How would the time 
pass until the next mail came due? I was 
thankful from my heart to think that half the 
time had passed. Only I felt now at this mo- 
ment that I must breathe, get out upon the 
downs, shake off the overpowering sense of sor- 
roAv. I could not but feel when those so dear 
and so near to me were in so much pain ; but 
on my way, as I passed Lady Jane's door, some 
compunction made me pause for a moment, and 
knock and go in. Poor Lady Jane ! She was 
standing at the toilet-table. She had opened 
her dressing-case to get out the letter which 
she had hidden away there only a few minutes 
before, and in so doing she seemed to have 
caught sight of her own face in the glass, fright- 
ened and strange, and unlike any thing she had 
ever seen before. And so she stood looking in 
a curious stupid way at tlie tears slowly cours- 
ing down her cheeks. She started as I came 
in, and turned round. 

"I — I am not used to this sort of thing," 
said she. " I have been feeling as if I was 
I 



somebody else, Mrs. Campbell. I don't know 
what I ought to do. What do you think ? 
Shall I take this in ? Will it be of any com- 
fort ?" 

" It will be of no comfort, I fear. It was 
written before — before that happened. But I 
fear it is of no use trying to keep any thing 
from her now," I said, and then together we 
went back to the door of the mistress's little 
room. Mrs. St. Julian put out her hand for 
the letter, and signed to us to go. Only as we 
walked away along the passage I heard a great 
burst of sobbing, and I guessed that it was occa- 
sioned by the sight of poor Bevis's well-known 
handwriting. Poor Lady Jane began to cry 
too, and then jerked her tears impatiently 
away, beginning to look like herself again. 

"It's too absurd," she said. "All about 
nothing. Dear old Bevis ! I am sure he will 
come back all safe. I have no patience with 
such silly frights. I am frightened too now ; 
but there is no more danger than there was 
yesterday." 

I could not help thinking there was some 
sense in Lady Jane's cheerful view of things : 
after all it was the barest uncertainty and hint 
of evil, when all around, on every side, dangers 
of every sort were about each one of those whom 
we loved, from which no loving cares or prayers 
could shield them : a foot slips, a stone falls, 
and a heart breaks or a life is ended, and what 
then . . . ? A horrible vision of my own child 
— close, close to the edge of the dreadful cliff — 
came before me. I was nervous and infected, 
too, with sad terrors and presentiments which 
the sight of the poor sweet young wife's misery 
had suggested. 

In her odd, decided way, she said she must 
come out too. She could not bear the house, 
she could not bear to see the others. 

Lady Jane walked beside me with firm, even 
footsteps, occasionally telling me one thing and 
another of her favorite brother. Her flow of 
talk was interrupted : the real true heart Avithin 
her seemed stirred by an unaffected sympathy 
for the trouble of the people with whom she was 
living. Her face seemed kindled, the hard look 
had gone out of it ; for the first time I could 
imagine a likeness between her and her brother, 
and I began to feel a certain trust and reliance 
in this strange wayward woman. After a little 
she was quite silent. We had a dreary little 

I walk, pacing on together along the lane : how 

! long the way seemed, how dull the hedges look- 
ed, how dreary the road ! It seemed as if our 
walk had lasted for hours, but we had been out 

! only a very little time. When we came in 
there was a three-cornered note addressed to 

I Lady Jane lying on the hall table. " A gentle- 
man brought it," said the parlor-maid ; and I left 

] Lady Jane to her correspondence, while I ran up 

to see how my two dear women were going on. 

The day lagged on slowly : Emmy had got 

I her little Bevis with her, and was lying down 
in her own room while he played about. Mrs. 
St. Julian caii>e and went, doing too much for 



130 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



her own strength, but I could not prevent her. 
She put me in mind of some bird hovering 
about her nest, as I met her again and again 
standing wistful and tender by her daughter's 
door, listening, and thinking what she could do 
more to ease her pain. 

In course of the afternoon St. Julian, who 
liad been out when all this happened — having 
suddenly dismissed his model, and gone off for 
one of the long solitary tramps to which he was 
sometimes accustomed — came home to find the 
house in sad confusion. I think his presence 
was better medicine for Emmy than her moth- 
er's tender, wistful sympathy. 

" I don't wonder at your being very uncom- 
fortable," he said; but I myself think there is a 
strong probability that your fears are unfound- 
ed. Bevis says most distinctly that he has re- 
fused to join the expedition. His name has 
been talked of : that is enough to give rise to a 

report that he is one of the party I 

would give you more sympathy if I did not 
think that it won't be wanted, my dear." He 
pulled her little hand through his arm as he 
spoke, and patted it gently. He looked so ten- 
der, so encouraging, so well able to take care of 
the poor little thing, she clung to him closer 
and closer. 

"Oh, my dearest papa," she said, "I will 
try, indeed I will !" And she hid her face, and 
tried to choke down her sobs. 

I had prepared a bountiful tea for them, to 
which St. Julian came ; but neither Mrs. St. 
Julian nor Emilia appeared. Lady Jane came 
down, somewhat subdued, but trying to keep up 
a desultory conversation, as if nothing had hap- 
pened, which vexed me at the moment. Even 
little Bevis soon found out that something was 
wrong, and his little voice seemed hushed in the 
big wooden room. 

And then the next day dawned, and another 
long day lagged on. St. Julian would allow no 
change to be made in the ways of the house. 
He was right, for any change would but have 
impressed us all more strongly with the cer- 
tainty of misfortune- On Timrsday we should 
hear our fate. It was but one day more to 
wait, and one long, dark, interminable night. 
Hexham did not mean to leave us : on the con- 
trary, when St. Julian made some proposal of 
the sort, he said, in true heart-tones, "Let me 
stay ; do not send me away. Oh ! St. Julian, 
don't I belong to you? I don't think I need 
tell you now that the one great interest of my 
life is here among you all." The words touched 
St. Julian very much, and there could be no 
doubt of their loyalty. "Let him stay, papa," 
said Hester gently. In his emotion the young man 
spoke out quite openly before us all. It was a 
time which constrained us all to be simple, from 
the very strength of our sympathy for the dear, 
and gentle, aaad stricken young wife above. 

Little Bevis came down before dinner, and 
played about as tisual. I was touched to see the 
tenderness which iliey all showed to him. His 
grandfather let him run into his studio, upset 



his color-pots, turn over his canvases — one of 
them came down with a great sound upon the 
floor. It was the picture of the two women at 
the foot of the beacon waiting together in sus- 
pense. Little Bevis went to bed as usual, and 
we dined as usual, but I shall never forget that 
evening, how endless and interminable it seem- 
ed. After dinner St. Julian, who had been up 
to see Emmy in her room, paced up and down 
the drawing-room, quite unnerved for once. 
" My poor child," he kept repeating ; "my poor 
child!" 

The w ind had risen : we could hear the low 
roar of the sea moaning against the shingle ; the 
rain suddenly began to pour in the darkness out- 
side, and the fire burnt low, for the great drops 
came down the chimney. Hexham did his best 
to cheer us. He was charming in his kindness 
and thoughtfulness. His manner to Hester was 
so tender, so gentle, at once humble and protect- 
ing, that I could only wonder that she held out 
as she did against its charm. She scarcely an- 
swered him, scarcely looked at him. She sat 
growing paler and paler. Was it that it seem- 
ed to her wrong, when her sister was in such 
sorrow and anxiety, to think of her own happi- 
ness or concerns? It was something of this, for 
once in tlie course of the evening I heard her 
say to him : — 

"I can not talk to you yet. Will you wait ?" 

"A lifetime," said Hexham, in a low moved 
voice. 

Hexham -went away to smoke with St. Julian. 
I crossed the room and sat down by Hester, and 
put my arms round her. The poor child leaned 
her head upon my shoulder. Lady Jane was 
with Emilia, who had sent for her. Long after 
they had all gone up sad and wearily to their 
rooms, I sat by the fire Avatching the embers burn 
out one by one, listening to the sudden gusts of 
wind against the window-pane, to the dull rush 
of the sea breaking with loud cries and sobs. 

All the events of the day were passing before 
me, over and over again : first one troubled face, 
then another ; voice after voice echoing in my 
ears. Was there any hope any where in Hester's 
eyes ? I thought ; and they seemed looking up 
out of the fire into my own, as I sat there drowsi- 
ly and sadly. 

It was about two o'clock, I think, when I start- 
ed: for I heard a sound of footsteps coming. A 
tall white-robed woman, carrying a lamj), came 
into the room, and advanced and sat down beside 
me. It was poor Lady Jane. All her cheerful- 
ness was gone, and I saw now what injustice I 
had done her, and how she must have struggled 
to maintain it; she looked old and haggard sud- 
denly. 

" I could not rest," she said. ' ' I came down, 
— I thought you might be here. I couldn't stay 
in my room listening to that dreadful wind." 
Poor thing, I felt for her. I made up the fire 
once more, and we two kept a dreary watch for 
an hour and more, till the wind went down and 
tlie sea calmed, and Lady Jane began to nod in 
her arm-chair. 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



131 



XII. 



I AWOKE on the Thursday movning more 
hopeful than I had gone to bed. I don't know 
\vh\', for there was no more reason to hope either 
more or less than there had been the night be- 
fore. On Thursday or on Friday the French 
mail would come with news : that was our one 
thought. We still tried to go on as usual, as if 
nothing was the matter. The bells rang, tlie 
servants came and went with stolid faces. It is 
horrible to say, but already at the end of these 
few interminable hours it seemed as if we were 
getting used to this new state of things. Emilia 
still kept up stairs. Lady Jane paced about 
in her restless way ; from one room to an- 
other, from one person to another, she went. 
Sometimes she would burst out into indignation 
against Lady Mountmore, who had driven poor 
Bevis to go. She had influenced his father, Lady 
Jane declared, and prevented him from advanc- 
ing a certain sum wliich he had distinctly prom- 
ised to Bevis before his marriage. "A promise 
is a promise," said Lady Jane. " The poor boy 
was too proud to ask for his rights. lie only 
went, I do believe, to escape that horrid Ephra- 
im. We behaved like brutes, every one of us. 
I am just as bad as the rest," said the poor lady. 

It was as she said. One day in June, when 
the Minister had sent to Mr. F., of the Foreign 
Office, to ask who was next on the list of Queen's 
messengers, it was found that the gentleman first 
in order had been taken ill only the day before ; 
the second after him was making up his book for 
the Derby next year. 

Poor Bevis — who was sitting disconsolately 
wondering how it would be possible to him to 
take up that bill of Ephraim's, which was daily 
appearing more terrible and impossible to meet 
— had heard St. Gervois and De Barty, the two 
other men in his room, discussing the matter, 
and announcing in very decided language their 
intention of remaining in London for the rest of 
the season, instead of starting off at a moment's 
notice with dispatches to some unknown Presi- 
dent in some unknown part of South America. 

Bevis said nothing, but got up and left the 
room. A few minutes after he came back look- 
ing very pale. "You fellows," he said, "Ishall 
want you to do a few things for me. I start for 
Rio to-morrow." 

" Mr. St. Gervois told me all abotft it," poor 
Lady Jane said, with a grunt, as she told me the 
story. 

This sudden determination took the Mount- 
mores and Mr. Ephraim by surprise, and, as I 
have said, it was on this occasion that Lady Jane 
spoke up on her brother's behalf, and that Emi- 
lia, after his departure, was formally recognized 
by his family. " If he — when he comes back," 
cried Lady Jane in a fume, "my father, in com- 
mon decency, must increase his allowance." A 
sudden light came into her face as she spoke. 
The thought of any thing to do or say for Bevis 
was a gleam of comfort to the poor sister. 

All that day was a feverish looking for news. 



St. Julian had already started off to London 
that morning in search of it. Once I saw the 
telegraph-boy from Tarmouth coming along the 
lane. I ran down eagerly, but Lady Jane was 
beforehand, and had pocketed the dispatch which 
the servant had brought her. " It is nothing," 
she said, " and only concerns me." A certain 
conscious look seemed to indicate Sigourney. 
But I asked no questions. I went on in my 
usual plodding way, putting by candles and soap, 
serving out sugar. Sometimes now when I stand 
in the store-closet I remember the odd double 
feeling with which I stood there that Thursday 
afternoon, with my heart full of sympathy, and 
then would come a sudden hardness of long use 
to me, looking back at the storms of life through 
which I had passed. A hard, cruel feeling of 
the inevitable laws of f;ite came over me.« 
What great matter was it : one more life struck 
down, one more innocent happiness blasted, one 
more parting ; were we not all of us used to it ? 
was any one spared ever ? . . . . One by one 
we are sent forth into the storm, alone to strug- 
gle through its fierce battlings till we find an- 
other shelter, another home, where we may rest 
for a little while, until the hour comes when 
once more we are driven out. It was an evil 
frame of mind, and a thankless one, for one 
who had found friends, a shelter, and help when 
most in need of them. As I was still standing 
among my stores that afternoon, Aileen came 
to the door, looking a little scared. "Queen- 
ie," she said, "Emilia is not in her room. 
Lady Jane, too, has been out for ever so long. 
Her maid tells me that she had a telegraphic 
message from that Captain Sigourney. Is it 
not odious of her now, at such a time ? Oh, 
she can't have — can't have — " 

"Eloped?" I said, smiling. "No, Aileen, 
I do not think there is much fear." 

As time went on, however, and neither of 
them reappeared, I became a little uneasy. 
Lady Jane's maid when questioned knew noth- 
ing of her mistress's intentions. Bevis was 
alone with his nurse, contentedly stocking a 
shop in his nursery out of her workbox. But 
it was not for Lady Jane that I was anxious — 
she could take care of herself; it was Emilia 
I was looking for. I put on my bonnet, and 
set off to try and find her. Hester and Hex- 
ham said they would go towards Ulles Hall, 
and see if she was there. 

I walked up the down, looking on every side. 
I thought each clump of furze was Emilia ; 
but at last, high up by the beacon, I saw a dark 
figure against the sky. 

Yes, it was Emilia up there, with beaten gar- 
ments and with wind-blown hair. She had un- 
consciously crouched down to escape the fierce 
blast. She was looking out seaward, at the 
dull tossing horizon. It seemed to me such an 
image of desolation that it went to my heart to 
see her so. I called her by her name, and ran 
up and put my hand upon her shoulder. 

"My, dear," I said, "we have been looking 
for you every where." 



132 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



She had not 



Emilia gave a little start, 
heard me call. 

"I could not rest at home," slie said. "I 
don't know what brought me here. I think I 
ran almost all the way." 

She spoke with a tremblinfr desperateness 
that frightened me. Two nights of sleepless- 
ness and these long maddening hours were 
enough to daze the poor child. If she were to 
break down ? But gentle things like Emilia 
bend and rise again. 

"Come home now, dear Emilia," I said; 
"it is growing dark. Your mother will be 
frightened about you." 

"Ah! people are often frightened wiien 
there is nothing to fear," said Emilia, a little 
strangely. 

. I could see that she was in a fever. Her 
cheeks were burning, while I was shivering: 
for the cold winds came eddying from the val- 
ley, and sweeping round and round us, making 
the beacon creak as they passed. The wind was 
■so chill, the sky so gray, and the green murky 
sea so dull at our feet, that I longed to get 
her away. It seemed to me much later tlian it 
really was. The solitude oppressed me. There 
was no life any where — no boats about. Per- 
haps they were lost in the mist that was writh- 
ing along from the land, and spreading out to 
sea. I can not say why it was so great a relief 
to me at last to see one little dark speck com- 
ing across the straits where the mist was not 
drifting. The sight of life — for boats are life 
to people looking out with lonely eyes — this 
little dark gray speck upon the waters, seemed 
to me to make the blast less dreary, and the 
lonely heights less lonesome. 

We began our walk in silence. Emilia's 
long blue cloak flapped in tlie wind, but I 
pulled it close about her. She let me do as I 
liked. She didn't speak. Once I said to her, 
"Emilia, do you know, when I cnme up just 
now, I thought you looked like the picture your 
father painted. Do you remember it ?" 

" I— I forget," said poor Emilia, turning 
her face away suddenly. All her strength 
seemed to have left her ; her limbs seemed 
scarcely able to drag along ; her poor little feet 
slipped and stumbled on the turf and against 
the white chalk-stones. I put my arm round 
her waist and helped her along as best I could, 
as we crept down the side of the hill. 

" I think I can not walk because my heart is 
so heavy," said Emilia once in her childish 
way, and her head dropped on my shoulder. I 
hardly can tell what I feared for her, or what I 
hoped. Sleeplessness and anxiety were ene- 
mies too mighty for this helpless little frame to 
encounter. 

I was confused and frightened, and I took a 
wrong turning. It brought us to the end of a 
field where a gate had once stood, which was 
now done away with. We could not force 
through the hedges and the palings : there was 
nothing to do but to turn back. It seems 
childish to record, but when I found that we 



must retrace so many of our weary steps, stum- 
bling back all the way, in one of those biting 
gusts of wind, I burst out crying from fatigue, 
and sympathy, and excitement. It seemed all 
so dreary and so hopeless. Emilia roused her- 
self, seeing me give way. Poor child, her sweet 
natural instincts did not desert her, even in her 
own bewildered pain. She took hope suddenly, 
trying to find strength to help me. 

" Oh Queenie !" she said. " Think if we 
find, to-morrow, that all is well, and tliat all 
this anxiety has been for nothing. But it could 
not be for nothing, could it?" she said. 

It is only another name for something greater 
and holier than anxiety, I thought ; but I could 
not speak, for I was choking, and I had not yet 
regained command of my own voice. Our walk 
was nearly over ; Me got out on to the lane, 
and so approached our home. At the turn of 
the road I saw a figure standing looking for us 
— a little figure, with hair flying on the gale, 
who, as we appeared, stumbling and weary, 
sprang forward to meet us ; then suddenly 
stopped, turned, and fled, with fluttering skirts 
and arms outstretched, like a spirit of the wind. 
I could not understand it, nor why my little 
Mona (for it was she) should have run away. 
Even this moment's sight of her, in the twilight, 
did me good and cheered me. How well I re- 
member it all ! The dark rustling hedges, a 
jiale streak of yellow light in the west shining 
beyond the hedge, and beyond the stem of the 
hawthorn-tree. It gleamed sadly and weirdly 
in the sky, among clouds of darkness and va- 
])orous shadows ; the earth reflected the light 
faintly at our feet, more brightly in the garden, 
which was higher than the road. Emilia put 
out her hand, and pulled herself wearily up tlie 
steps which led to the garden. It was very 
dark, but in the light from the stormy gleam 
she saw something which made her cry out. I 
pulled Emilia back, with some exclamation, 
being still confused and not knowing what dark 
figure it was standing before me in the gloam- 
ing; but Emilia burst away from me with a 
cry, with a low passionate sob. She fiew from 
me straight into two arms that caught her. 
My heart was beating, my eyes were full of 
tears, so that I could scarcely see what had 
happened. 

But I heard a low "Bevis! Oh Bevis !" 
For a moment I stood looking at the two stand- 
ing clinging together. The cold wind still 
came in slirill gusts, the gray clouds still drift- 
ed, the sun-streak was dying : but peace, light, 
love unspeakable were theirs, and the radiance 
from their grateful hearts seemed to overflow 
into ours. 



XIII. 
"Where is Lady Jane?" interrupted Hex- 
ham, coming home in the twilight, from a fruit- 
less search with Hester, to hear the great news. 
It was so great, so co plet", so unexpected, that 
we none of us quite realized it yet. We were 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



133 



strangely silent ; we looked at each other : some 
sat still ; the younger ones went vaguely rush- 
ing about the house, from one end to the other. 
Aileen and Mona were like a pair of mad kit- 
tens, dancing and springing from side to side. 
It was pretty to see Hester rush in, tremulous, 
tender, almost frightened by the very depth of 
her sympathy. The mistress was holding Emi- 
lia's hand, and turning from her to Bevis. 

" Oh Bevis, if you knew what three days we 
have spent !" said Hester, flinging her arms 
round him. 

" Don't let us talk about it any more," s.aid 
he, kissing her blooming cheek, and then he 
bent over the soft mother's hand that trembled 
out to meet his own. 

It was not at first that we any of us heard 
very clearly what had happened, for Emilia 
turned so pale at first when her husband began 
speaking of that fatal expedition in the boat up 
the Parana River, that Bevis abruptly changed 
the subject, and began describing the road from 
London to Tarmouth, instead of dwelling on 
his escape from the accident, or the wonders of 
that dream-world from whence he had come — 
an unknown land to us all of mighty streams 
and wavhig verdure ; of great flowers, and con- 
stellations, and mysterious splashings and stir- 
rings along the waters. Emmy — her nerves 
were still unstrung — turned pale, and Bevis 
suddenly began to describe his journey from 
Waterloo to Tarmouth, and his companion from 
London. 

One of the first questions Bevis had asked 
was for news of his sister. Not knowing where 
any body was to be found, he had gone straight 
to tlie Foreign Office on his arrival, for he was 
anxious to start again by the midday train for 
Broadshire. It was so early that none of his 
friends were come; only the porter welcomed him, 
and told him that there had been many inquir- 
ies after him — a gentleman only that morning, 
who had left his card for Mr. St. Gervois, with 
a request for news to be immediately forwarded 
to him at his lodgings. Bevis glanced at the 
name on the card — Captain Sigourney : it was 
unknown to him, and, to tell the truth, the poor 
fellow did not care to meet strangers of any sort 
until he had seen or heard from his own people, 
and received some answer to that last appeal to 
his father. " The gentleman was to come 
again," said the porter ; "he seemed very par- 
ticular." Mr. St. Julian, too, had been there 
the evening before : he had come up from 
Broadshire on purpose to make inquiries. Be- 
vis impatiently looked at his watch : he had not 
time to find St. Julian out — he had only time 
to catch the train. He wanted to get to his lit- 
tle Emmy — to put her heart at rest, since all 
this anxiety had been going on about him. " I 
shall be back again on Saturday," he wrote on 
his card, and desired the porter specially to 
give it to St. Gervois, and to refer all references 
to him, and to no one else. 

" And if the captain should come ?" asked 
the porter. 



"Oh, hang the captain!" said Bevis; "I 
don't know what he can want. Tell him any 
thing you like, so long as he does not come after 
me." 

" There is the gentleman," said the porter, 
pointing to a languid figure that was crossing 
the street. 

Bevis looked doubtfully at the sti-anger. He 
hastily turned away, called a passing Hansom, 
and, driving round by the hotel where he had 
left his luggage, reached the station only in time 
to catch the quick train to Helmington. He 
thought of telegraphing, but it was scarcely 
necessary when he was to see them all so soon. 
He had posted a note to his father; he also 
wrote a line to St. Julian, which he left at the 
"Athensum " as he passed .... 

x\s Bevis settled himself comfortably in the 
corner of his carriage, he was much annoyed 
when the door opened just as the train was 
starting, and a tall, languid person whom he 
recognized as Captain Sigourney was jerked in. 
What did he want ? Was he following him on 
purpose ? Was it a mere accident, or was this 
an emissary of that E})liraim's, already on his 
track ? It seemed scarcely possible, and ydt . . . 
Bevis opened his Tunes wide, knitted his hand- 
some brows, and glanced at his companion sus- 
piciously. He had come already to the old anx- 
ieties, but the thought of seeing his little Emi- 
lia was so deliglitful to him that it prevented him 
from troubling himself very seriously about any 
possible chances or mischances that might be 

across their path The young fellow 

dropped his Times gradually, forgetting bills 
overdue, money troubles, debtors to forgive, and 
debts to be forgiven. He sat looking out at the 
rapid landscape, village spires, farms, and broad 
pleasant fields, dreaming of happy meetings, of 
Emilia's glad looks of recognition, the boys, of 
Aileen, and his favorite Hester hopping about 
in an excitement of welcome gladness. " Will 
you let me look at your Times?" said a voice — 
this was from Captain Sigourney, in his opposite 
corner. "I had to send off a telegraph at the 
last moment, and had no time to get a paper," 
explained that gentleman. Bevis stared, and 
gave him the paper without speaking ; but the 
undaunted captain, who loved a listener, went 
on to state that he was anxious about the arrival 
of the South American mail. "I believe the 
French steamer comes in about this time ?" he 
said, in an inquiring tone of voice. " Ah !" 
said Bevis, growing more and more reserved. 
Poor Sigourney's odd insinuating manner was 
certainly against him. "I shall probably have 
to telegraph again on the way," continued Sig- 
ourney, unabashed, as they neared Winchester. 
One thing struck Bevis oddly, which was this: 
when the guard at Winchester came to look at 
their tickets, his companion's was a return tick- 
et ; and the poor young fellow, having got a 
suspicious idea in his head, began to ask himself 
what possible object a man could have in travel- 
ing all this way down and back again in one day, 
and whether it would not be as well, under the 



134 



FROM AN ISLAND. 



circumstances, to change carnages, and get out 
of his way. " Here, let me out," he cried to the 
guard ; and, to his great relief, Sigourney made 
no opposition to this move on his part. 

"A fellow gets suspicious," said honest Be- 
vis. " It was too bad. But I can't under- 
stand the fellow now. He seemed dodging me 
a,bout. He had a return-ticket, too, and I only 
got away from him by a chance. I don't mind 
so much, now that I have seen you, little woman. 
Ephraim may have a dozen writs out against 
me, for all I know. I thought there was some- 
thing uncomfortable about the man the moment 
I saw him ; and I asked the porter at the For- 
eign Office not to tell him any thing about me." 
As Bevis went on with the account of his morn- 
ing, my mistress and I had looked at one an- 
other and dimly begun to connect one thing and 
another in our minds. ''I suppose I was mis- 
taken," Bevis ended, shrugging his shoulders ; 
" since here I am. But if not to-day, he will 
have me to-morrow. I only put off the evil 
day by running away. Well, I've brought back 
Jane's hundred pounds, and I have seen my 
little woman again, and the boy, and all of you, 
and now I don't care what happens." 

" Hush," said Mrs. St. Julian ; " my husband 
must help you. Your father has written to him. 
You should have come to us." 

"I believe I acted like a fool," said Beverley, 
penitently. "Perhaps, after all, I fancied things 
worse than they were. I couldn't bear to come 
sponging on St. Julian, and I was indignant at 
something which my stepmother said, and— is 
Jane here, do you say ?" 

We were all getting seriously uneasy. Lady 
Jane's maid brought in the telegram slie had 
found in her room, which seemed to throw some 
vague light upon her movements. 

Captain Sigourney, Waterloo Station, to Lady 
Jane Beveeley, Tarmovth, Broadshire. 
I implore you to meet me at Tarmouth. I 
come by the four-o'clock boat. I have news of 
your brother. 

(Signed) Sigourney. 

"Sigourney!" cried Bevis. 

There was a dead silence, and nobody knew 
exactly what to say next. All our anxiety and 
speculation -were allayed before dinner by the 
return of the pony-carriage with a hasty note 
from Lady Jane herself: — 

Dearest Mrs. St. Julian,— Kind Captain 
Sigourney has been to London inquiring for us. 
He has heard confidentially, from a person at 
the Foreign Office, that my brother has been 
heard of by this mail. He thought it best to 
come to me straight, and I have decided to go 
off to London immediately. I shall probably 
find my father at home in Bruton Street. I 
will write to-morrow. Fond love to deai-est ! 
Emilia. Your affectionate, anxious j 

Jane Beverley. 

"But -what docs it all mean?" cried Bevis, 



[ in a fume. "What business has Captain Sig- 
ourney with my safety ?" And it was only by 
degrees that he could be appeased at all. 

" This fire won't burn !" cried Mona. 
There is a little pine-wood growing not far 
from the Lodges, where Aileen and Mona some- 
times boil a kettle and light a fire of dry sticks, 
twigs, and fir-cones. The pine-wood runs up 
the side of a steep hill that leads to the down. 
In the hollow below lie bright pools glistening 
among wet mosses and fallen leaves and pine- 
twigs ; but the abrupt sides of the little wood are 
dry and sandy, and laced and overrun by a net- 
work of slender roots that go spreading in every 
I direction. In between the clefis and jagged fis- 
sures of the ground the sea shines, blue and 
gleaming, while the white ships, like birds, seem 
j to slide in between the branches. Tlie tea- 
party was in honor of Bevis's return, the little 
j maidens said. Thsy had transported cups and 
cloths, pats of butter and brown loaves, all of 
which good things were set on a narrow ledge; 
I while a little higher the flames were sparkling, 
and a kettle hanging in the pretty thread of blue 
faint smoke. Mona, on her knees, was piling 
sticks and cones upon the fire ; Aileen was 
[ busy spreading her table ; and little Bevis was 
I trotting about, picking up various little shreds 
and stones that took his fancy, and bringing 
them to poke into the bright little flame that was 
crackling and sparkling and growing every mo- 
: ment more bright. 

Bevis and Emilia were the hero and heroine 
of the entertainment. Hexham was fine, Aileen 
^ said, and would not take an interest, and so he 
was left with Hester pasting photographs in the 
dining-room, while the rest of us came off this 
bright autumnal afternoon to camp in the copse. 
The sun still poured unwearied over the country, 
and the long delightful summer seemed ending 
in light and brilliancy. It was during this pic- 
[ nic tea-drinking that I heard more than I had 
hitherto done of Mr. Beverley's adventures. 
" This kettle wori't boil !" said Mona. 
And while Bevis was good-naturedly poking 
and stirring the flames, Emilia began in a low, 
frightened voice : " Oh, Queenie, even now I 
I can hardly believe it. He has been telling me 
all about it. He finished his work sooner than 
: he had expected. I think the poor General was 
shot with whom he was negotiating : at all events 
I he found that there was nothing more for him to 
i do, and that he might as well take his passage by 
the very next ship. And then, to pass the time, 
he went off with those other poor men for a 
couple of days' shooting, and then they met a 
drove of angry cattle swimming across the 
stream, and they could not get out of the way 
in time, and two were drowned," faltered Emi- 
lia; "but when dear Bevis came to himself, he 
had floated a long way down the stream. He 
had been unconscious, but bravely clinging to an 
oar all the time .... and then he scrambled 
on shore and wandered on till he got to a wood- 
en house, belonging to two young men, who took 



FEOM AN ISLAND. 



13u 



him in — but he had had a blow on the head, 
and he was very ill for tliiee days, and the steam- 
er was gone when he got back to Rio — and 
that was how it was." 

As she ceased she caught hold of little Bevis, 
who was trotting past her, and suddenly clutcli- 
ed him to her heart. How happy she was ! a 
little frigh^ned still, even in her great joy, but 
with smiles and lights in her radiant face — her 
very hair seemed shining as she sat under the 
pine-trees, sometimes looking up at her husband, 
or with proud eyes following Bevy's little dump- 
ling figure as he busily came and went. 

"Here is Hexham, after all," cried Bevis 
from the heights, looking down as he spoke, and 
Hexham's head appeared from behind a bank 
o| moss and twigs. 

"Why, what a capital gypsy photograph you 
would all' make!" cried the enthusiastic Hex- 
ham as he came up. "I have brought you 
some letters. Hester is coming dii-ectly with 
William St. Julian, who has just arrived." 

"I really don't think we can give you all 
cups," said Aileen, busily pouring from her boil- 
ing kettle into her teapot. "You know I didn't 
expect you." 

Bevis took all the letters and began to read 
them out : — 

LoED MousTMORE to the Hon. Bevis Bever- 
ley. . 
Friday. 

Mt dear Boy, — The news of your safe re- 
turn from Rio has relieved us all from a most 
anxious state of mind. You have had a provi- 
dential escape, upon which we most warmly and 
heartily congratulate you. With regard to the 
subject of your letter, I am willing to accede to 
your request, and to allow you once more the 
same sum that you have always had hitherto. 
I will also assist you to take up the bill, if you 
will give me your solemn promise never to have 
any thing more to do with the Jews. Jane has 
pleaded your cause so well that I can not refuse 
her. My lady desires her love. 

Your affectionate father, M . 

Jane is writing, so I send no message from 
her. She arrived, poor girl, on Thursday, in a 
most distressed state of mind. I hope we shall 
see you here with your wife before long. 

II. 
Unknown Friend, Ch. Coll., Cambridge, to 
Geo. Hexham, Esq., The Island, Tarmouth. 
My deab George, — I have been expecting 



this letter ever since I received your last, from 
which, by-the-by, one page was missing. Fare- 
well, O friend of my bachelorhood. Seriously, 
I long to see you, and to hear all about it. I 
must also beg to congratulate the future Mrs. 
Hexham upon having secured the affections of 
one of the best and truest-hearted of men. I 
have no doubt she fully deserves her good for- 
tune. 

Ever, my dear fellow, affectionately yours, 



III. 

Mrs. William St. Julian, Kensington Square, 

to Mrs. St. Julian, Tarmouth. 

My dearest Mrs. St. Julian, — I send this 
by William, who can not rest until he has seen 
you all and told you how heartfelt are our sym- 
pathies and congratulations. How little we 
thought, as we drove off on Monday morning, 
of all that was at hand ! It seems very unfeel- 
ing as I look back now. I shall feel quite nerv- 
ous until William comes back, but he has prom- 
ised to take a return ticket to reassure me. I 
am quite surprised by the news you send me 
this morning of Hester's engagement. I always 
had my own ideas, though I did not speak of 
them (we quiet people often see a good deal 
more than people imagine), and I quite expect- 
ed that Lady Jane would have been the lady. 
However, it is much better as it is, and Mr. Hex- 
ham is, I have no doubt, all you could wish for 
dear Hester. Do give my best and kindest con- 
gratulations to dear Emilia. How delighted she 
must have been to get the good news of her hus- 
band's safety ! I hope it was not too much for 
her — excitement is very apt to knock one up. 
The children send a hundred loves and kisses. 
Believe me 

Your affectionate daughter, 

Margaret St. Julian. 

P.S. — I have had a visit from a very delight- 
ful Captain Sigourney. He called upon me to 
ask for news of you all. It seems he escorted 
Lady Jane to town, and that in consequence of 
information he had received, at the Foreign Of- 
fice he was able to be of great service to her, al- 
though the information afterwards turned out 
incorrect. A person there had assured him that 
Mr. Beverley had been in town some time, and 
had returned to South America for good. What 
strange reports get about ! One should be very 
careful never to believe any body. 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS, 

DEDICATED TO 

FIVE YOUNG PRINCESSES. 
<^. €:. H. 

ill. QL. 0. 
am 

in. !i. s. 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD. 



A KIND enchantress one day put into my 
hand a mystic volume prettily lettered and 
bound in green, saying, " I am so fond of this 
book ! It has all the dear old fairy tales in it ; 
one never tires of them. Do take it." 

I carried the little book away with me, and 
spent a very pleasant quiet evening at home by 
the fire, with H. at the opposite corner, and oth- 
er old friends, whom I felt I had somewhat neg- 
lected of late. Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss 
in Boots, the gallant and quixotic Giant-killer, 
the dearest Cinderella, whom we every one of 
us must have loved, I should think, ever since 
we first knew her in her little brown pin- 
afore : I wondered, as I shut them all up for 
the night between their green boards, what it 
was that made these stories so fresh and so vivid. 
Why did not they fall to pieces, vanish, ex- 
plode, disappear, like so many of their contem- 
poraries and descendants ? And yet far from 
being forgotten and passing away, it would 
seem as if each generation in turn as it came 
into the world looks to be delighted still by the 
brilliant pageant, and never tires nor wearies of 
it. And on their side the princes and princess- 
es never seem to grow any older ; the castles 
and the lovely gardens flourish without need 
of repair or whitewash, or plumbers or glaziers. 
The princesses' gowns, too — sun, moon, and 
star color — do not wear out, or pass out of 
fiishion, or require altering. Even the seven- 
leagued boots do not appear to be the worse for 
wear. Numbers of realistic stories for children 
have passed away. Little Henry and his Bear- 
er, and Poor Harry and Lucy, have very nearly 
given up their little artless ghosts and prattle, 
and ceased making their own beds for the in- 
struction of less excellently brought -up little 
boys and girls, and notwitlistanding a very in- 
teresting article in the Satiirdai/ Review, it must 
be owned that Harry Sandford and Tommy 
Merton are not familiar playfellows in our nur- 
series and school-rooms, and have passed some- 
what out of date. But not so all these cente- 
narians. Prince Riquet, Carabas, Little Red 
Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and others. They 
seem as if they would never grow old. They 
play with the children, they amuse the elders, 
thtere seems no end to their fund of spirits and 
perennial youth. 

H., to whom I made this remark, said from 
the opposite chimney-corner: "No wonder; 
the stories are only histories of real living per- 
sons turned into iViiry princes and princesses. 



Fairy stories are every where and every day. 
We are all princes and princesses in disguise, 
or ogres or wicked dwarfs. All these histories 
are the histories of human nature, which does 
not seem to change very much in a thousand 
yeai-s or so, and we don't get tired of the fairies 
because they are so true to it." 

After this little speech of H.'s, we spent an 
unprofitable half-hour reviewing our acquaint- 
ance, and classing them under their real char- 
acters and qualities. We had dined with Loi'd 
Carabas only the day before and met Puss in 
Boots — Beauty and the Beast were also there ; 
we uncharitably.counted up, I am ashamed to 
say, no less than six Bluebeards. Jack and the 
Beanstalk we had met just starting on his climb. 
A Red Riding Hood ; a girl with toads dropping 
from her mouth : we knew three or four of each. 
Cinderellas— alas ! who does not know more 
than one dear, poor, pretty Cinderella ! and as 
for sleeping Princesses in the Woods, how 
many one can reckon up ! Young, old, ugly, 
pretty, awakening, sleeping still. 

"Do you remember Cecilia Lulworth," said 
H., "and Dorlicote ? Poor Cecilia!" Some 
lives are conleur de rose, people say ; others seem 
to be, if not conleur de rose all through, yet full 
of bright beautiful tints, blues, pinks, little bits 
of harmonious cheerfulness. Other lives, not 
so brilliant, and seeming more or less gray at 
times, are very sweet and gentle in tone,with faint 
gleams of gold or lilac to brighten them. And 
then again others are black and hopeless from 
the beginning. Besides all these, there are some 
wliich have always appeared to me as if they 
were of a dark, dull hue ; a dingy, heavy brown, 
which no happiness, or interest, or bright color 
could ever enliven. Blues turn sickly, roses 
seem faded, and yellow lilacs look red and ugly 
upon these heavy backgrounds. " Poor Ce- 
cilia," as H. called her, — hers had always 
seemed to me one of these latter existences, un- 
utterably dull, commonplace, respectable, stint- 
ed, ugly, and useless. 

Lulworth Hall, with the great dark park 
bounded by limestone walls, with iron gates 
here and there, looked like a blot upon the 
bright and lovely landscape. The place from a 
distance, compared with the surrounding coun- 
try, was a blur and a blemish, as it were, sad, 
silent, solitary. 

Travellers passing by sometimes asked if the 
place was uninhabited, and were told, "No, 
shure,— the fam'ly lives thear all the yeauiT 



140 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



round." Some charitable souls might wonder 
what life could be like behind those dull gates. 
One day a young fellow riding by saw rather a 
sweet woman's face gazing for an instant 
through the bars, and he went on his way with 
a momentary thrill of pity. Need I say that it 
was poor Cecilia, who looked out vacantly to see 
who was passing along the high-road. She 
was surrounded by hideous moreen, oil-cloth, 
punctuality, narrow-mindedness, horse-hair, and 
mahogany. Loud bells rang at intervals, reg- 
ular, monotonous. Surly but devoted attend- 
ants waited upon her. She was rarely alone ; 
her mother did not think it right that a girl 
in Cecilia's position should "race" about the 
grounds unattended ; as for going outside the 
walls, it was not to be thought of. When Ce- 
cilia went out, with her gloves on, and her ga- 
loches, iier mother's companion, Miss Bowie}', 
walked beside her up and down the dark laurel 
walk at the back of the house — up and down, 
down and up, up and down. " I think I am 
getting tired, Maria," Miss Lulworth would say 
at last. "If so, we had better return to the 
hall," Maria would reply, "although it is before 
our time." And then they would walk home 
in silence, between the iron railings and laurel- 
bushes. 

As Cecilia walked erectly by Miss Rowley's 
side, the rooks went whirling over their heads, 
the slugs crept sleepily along the path under 
the shadow of the grass and the weeds ; they 
heard no sounds except the cawing of the birds, 
and the distant monotonous hacking noise of 
the gardener and his boy digging in the kitchen- 
garden. 

Cecilia, peeping into the long drab drawing- 
room on her return, might perhaps see her 
mother, erect and dignfied, at her open desk, 
composing, writing, crossing, re-writing, an end- 
less letter to an indifferent cousin in Ireland, 
with a single candle and a small piece of blot- 
ting paper, and a pen-wiper made of ravellings, 
all spread out before her. 

"You have come home early, Cecil," says 
the lady, without looking up. "You had bet- 
ter make the most of your time, and practise till 
the dressing-bell rings. Maria will kindly 
take up your things." 

And then in the chill twilight Cecilia sits 
down to the jangling instrument with tlie worn 
silk flutings. A faded rack it is upon which her 
fingers have been distended ever since she can 
remember. A great many people think there 
is nothing in the world so good for children as 
scoldings, whippings, dark cupboards, and dry 
bread and water, upon which they expect them 
to grow up into tall, fat, cheerful, amiable men 
and women ; and a great many people think 
that for grown-up young people the silence, the 
chillness, the monotony, and sadness of their 
own fading twilight days is all that is required. 
Mrs. Lulworth and Maria Bowlcy her compan- 
ion, Cecilia's late governess, were quite of this 
opinion. They themselves, when they were lit- 
tle girls, had been slapped, snubbed, locked up 



in closets, thi'ust into bed at all sorts of hours, 
flattened out on backboards, set on high stools 
to play the piano for days together, made to hem 
frills five or six weeks long, and to learn im- 
mense pieces of poetry, so that they had to stop 
at home all the afternoon. And though Mrs. 
Lulworth had grown up stupid, suspicious, nar- 
row-minded, soured, and overbearing, and had 
married for an establishment, and Miss Bowley, 
her governess's daughter, had turned out nerv- 
ous, undecided, melancholy, and anxious, and 
had never married at all, yet they determined 
to bring up Cecilia as they themselves had been 
brought up, and sincerely thought tliey could 
not do better. 

When Mrs. Lulworth married, she said to 
Maria: " Y'ou must come and live with me, 
and help to educate my children some day, Ma- 
ria. For the present I shall not have a home 
of my own ; we are going to reside with my hus- 
band's aunt, Mrs. Dormer. She is a very 
wealthy person, far advanced in years. She is 
greatly annoyed with Mr. and Mrs. John Lul- 
worth's vagaries, and she has asked me and my 
husband to take their places at Dorlicote Hall." 
At tlie end of ten years ]\Irs. Lulworth wrote 
again: "We are now permanently established 
in our aunt's house. I hear you are in want of 
a situation ; pray come and superintend the ed- 
ucation of my only child Cecilia (she is named 
after her godmotlier, Mrs. Dormer). She is 
now nearly three years old, and I feel that she 
begins to require some discipline." 

This letter had been written at that same desk 
twenty-two years before Cecilia began her prac- 
tising this autumn evening. Siie was twenty- 
five years old now, but like a child in experi- 
ence, in ignorance, in placidity ; a fortunate 
stolidity and slowness of temperament had 
saved her from being crushed and nipped in the 
bud, as it were. She was not bored, because she 
had never known any other life. It seemed to 
her only natural that all days should be alike, 
rung in and out by the jangling breakfast, lunch, 
dinner, and prayer bells. Mr. Dormer — a lit- 
tle chip of a man — read prayers suitable for 
every day in the week ; the servants filed in, 
maids first, then the men. Once Cecilia saw 
one of the maids blush and look down smiling 
as she marched out after the others. Miss 
Lulworth wondered a little, and thought she 
would ask Susan why she looked so strangely ; 
but Susan married the groom soon after, and 
went away, and Cecilia never had an opportu- 
nity of speaking to her. 

Night after night Mr. Dormer replaced his 
spectacles with a click, and pulled up his shirt- 
collar when the service was ended. Night 
after night old Mrs. Dormer coughed a little 
moaning cough. If she spoke, it was general- 
ly to make some little bitter remark. Evsay 
night she shook hands with her nephew and 
niece, kissed Cecilia's blooming cheek, and pat- 
ted out of the I'oom. She was a little woman 
with starling eyes. She had never got over 
her husband's death. She did not always know 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD. 



141 



when she moaned. She dressed in black, and 
lived alone in her turret, where she had various 
old - fiishioned occupations, tatting, camphor- 
boxes to sort, a real old spinning-wheel and dis- 
taff among other things, at which Cecilia, when 
she was a child, had pricked her fingers trying 
to make it whir as her aunt did. Spinning- 
wheels have quite gone out, but I know of one 
or two old ladies who still use them. Mrs. Dor- 
mer would go nowhere, and would see no one. 
Soatleastherniece, the master-spirit, declared, 
and the old lady got to believe it at last. I 
don't know how much the fear of the obnox- 
ious John and his wife and children may have 
had to do with this arrangement. 

When her great-aunt was gone it was Ceci- 
lia's turn to gather her work together at a warn- 
ing sign from her mother, and walk away 
tlirough the long cliilly passages to her slumbers 
in the great green four-post bed. And so time 
passed. *Cecilia grew up. She had neither 
friends nor lovers. She was not happy nor un- 
happy. She could read, but she never cared to 
open a book. She was quite contented ; for 
she thought Lulvvorth Hall the finest place, and 
its inmates the most important people, in the 
world. She worked a great deal, embroider- 
ing interminable quilts and braided ioilet-cov- 
ers and fish-napkins. She never thought of 
any thing but the uttermost commonplaces and 
platitudes. She considered that being respect- 
able and decorous, and a little pompous and 
overbearing, was the duty of every well-brought- 
up lady and gentleman. To-night she banged 
away very placidly at Rhodes's air, for the 
twentieth time breaking down in the same pas- 
sage and making the srfme mistake, until the 
dressing-bell rang, and Cecilia, feeling she had 
done her duty, then extinguished her candle, 
and went up stairs across the great chill hall, 
up the bare oil-cloth gallery, to her room. 

Most young women have some pleasure, 
whatever their troubles- may be, in dressing, and 
pretty trinkets, and beads and ribbons and neck- 
laces. An unconscious love of art and intuition 
leads some of them, even plain ones, to adorn 
themselves. The colors and ribbon-ends bright- 
en bright faces, enliven dull ones, deck what 
is already lovable, or, at all events, make the 
most of what materials there are. Even a Maj-- 
pole, crowned and flowered and tastily ribbon- 
ed, is a pleasing object. And, indeed, the art 
of decoration seems to me a charming natural 
instinct, and one which is not nearly enough en- 
couraged, and a gift which every woman should 
try to acquire. Some girls, like birds, know I 
how to weave, out of ends of rags, of threads 
and morsels and straws, a beautiful whole, a 
work of real genius for their habitation. Friv- 
olities, say some; waste of time, say others — 
expense, vanity. The strong-minded dowagers 
shake their heads at it all — Mrs. Lulworth 
among them ; only why had Nature painted 
Cecilia's cheeks of brightest pink, instead of 
bilious orange, like poor Maria Bowley's ? why 
was her hair all crisp and curly ? and were her ! 



white even teeth and her clear gray eyes vanity 
and frivolity too ? Cecilia was rather too stout 
for her age ; she had not much expression in 
her face. And no wonder. There was not 
much to be expressive about in her poor little 
stinted life. She could not go into raptures 
over the mahogany sideboard, the camphene 
lamp in the drawing-room, the four-post beds 
in-doors, the laurel-bushes without, the Moor- 
ish temple with yellow glass windows, or the 
wigwam summer-house, which were the alter- 
nate boundaries of her daily walks. 

Cecilia was not allowed a fire to dress herself 
by ; a grim maid, however, attended, and I sup- 
pose she was surrounded, as people say, by every 
comfort. There was a horse-hair sofa, with a 
creaking writing-table before it, a metal ink- 
stand, a pair of plated candlesticks : every 
thing was large, solid, brown, as I have said, 
grim, and in its ])lace. The rooms at Lulworth 
Hall did not take the impress of their inmate, 
the inmate was moulded by the room. There 
were in Cecilia's no young-lady-like trifles lying 
here and there ; upon the chest of drawers there 
stood a mahogany work-box, square, with a key, 
and a faded needle-book and darning-cotton in- 
side — a little dusty chenille, I believe, was to be 
seen round the clock on the chimney-piece, and 
a black and white check dressing-gown and an 
ugly little pair of slippers were set out before 
the toilet-table. On the bed, Cecilia's dinner 
costume was lying — a sickly green dress, trim- 
med with black — and a white flower for her hair. 
On the toilet-table an old-fashioned jasper ser- 
pent-necklace and a set of amethysts were dis- 
played for her to choose from, also mittens and 
a couple of hair-bracelets. The girl was quite 
content, and she would go down gravely to din- 
ner, smoothing out her hideous toggery. 

I\Irs. Dormer never came down before dinner. 
All day long she staid up in her room, dozing 
and trying remedies, and occasionally looking 
over old journals and letters until it was time 
to come down stairs. She liked to see Cecilia's 
pretty face at one side of the table, while her 
nephew carved, and Mrs. Lulworth recounted 
any of the stirring events of the day. Mrs. Dor- 
mer was used to the life — she was sixty when 
they came to her, she was long past eighty 
noAV — the last twenty years had been like a long 
sleep, with the dream of what happened when 
she was alive and in the world continually pass- 
ing before her. 

AVhen the Lulworths first came to her she 
had been in a low and nervous state, only stipu- 
lated for quiet and peace, and that no one was 
to come to her house of mourning. The John 
Lulworths, a cheery couple, broke down at the 
end of a month or two, and preferred giving up 
all chance of their aunt's great inheritance to 
living in such utter silence and seclusion. Upon 
Charles, the younger brother and his wife, the 
habit had grown, until now any thing else would 
have been toil and misery to them. Except 
the old rector from the village, the doctor now 
and then, no other human creature ever crossed 



143 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



the tlireshold. "For Cecilia's sake," Miss 
Bowlej once ventured to hint — " would it not be 
desirable to see a little more society ....?" 

" Cecilia witli her expectations has the whole 
world before her, Maria!" said Mrs. Lulworth, 
severely ; and indeed to this foolish woman it 
seemed as if money would add more to her 
daughter's happiness than the delights, the won- 
ders, the interests, the glamours of youth. 
Charles Lulworth, shriveled, selfish, dull, worn 
out, did not trouble his head about Cecilia's 
happiness, and let his wife do as she liked with 
the girl. 

This especial night when Cecilia came down 
in her ugly green dress, it seemed to her as if 
something unusual had been going on. The 
old lady's eyes looked bright and glittering, her 
father seemed more animated than usual, her 
mother looked mysterious and put out. It might 
have been fancy, but Cecilia thouglit they all 
stopped talking as she came into the room ; but 
then dinner was announced, and her father of- 
fered Mrs. Dormer his arm immediately, and 
they went into the dining-room. 

It must have been fancy. Every thing was 
as usual. "They have put up a few hurdles 
in Dalron's field, I see," said Mrs. Lulworth. 
" Charles, you ought to give orders for repair- 
ing the lock of the harness-room." 

"Have tliey seen to the pump-handle?" said 
Mr. Lulworth. 

"I think not." And there was a dead si- 
lence. 

"Potatoes," said Cecilia to the footman. 
"Mamma, we saw ever so many slugs in the 
laurel walk, Maria and I — didn't we, Maria ? 
I think there are a great many slugs in our 
place." 

Old Mrs. Dormer looked up while Cecilia was 
speaking, and suddenly interrupted her in the 
middle of her sentence. "How old are you, 
child ?" she said ; "are you seventeen or eight- 
een ?" 

" Eighteen ! Aunt Cecilia. I am five-and- 
twenty," said Cecilia, staring. 

"Good gracious! is it possible?" said her 
father, surprised. 

"Cecil is a woman now," said her mother. 

"Five-and-twenty," said the old lady, quite 
crossly. "I had no idea time went so fast. 
She ought to have been married long ago ; that 
is, if she means to marry at all." 

"Pray, my dear aunt, do not put such 
ideas — " Mrs. Lulworth began. 

"I don't intend to marry," said Cecilia, peel- 
ing an orange, and quite unmoved, and she 
slowly curled the rind of her orange in the air. 
" I think people are very stupid to marry. Look 
at poor Jane Simmonds— her husband beats 
her; Jones saw her." 

"So you don't intend to marry?" said the 
old lady, with an odd inflection in her voice. 
" Young ladies were not so wisely brought up 
in my early days," and she gave a great sigh. 
" I was reading an old letter this morning from 
my brother John, your j.ocr father, Charles — 



all about happiness, and love in a cot, and two 
little curly-headed boys — Jack, you know, and 
yourself. I should rather like to see Jack 
again." 

"What, my dear aunt, after his unparalleled 
audacity? I declare the thought of his impu- 
dent letter makes my blood boil," exclaimed 
Mrs. Lulworth. 

"Does it?" said the old lady. "Cecilia, 
my dear, you must know that your uncle has 
discovered that the entail was not cut off from 
a certain property which my father left me, and 
which I brought to my husband. He has there- 
fore written me a very business-like letter, in 
which he wishes for no alteration at present, 
but begs that, in the event of my making my 
will, I should remember this, and not compli- 
cate matters by leaving it to yourself, as had 
been my intention. I see nothing to offend in 
the request. Your mother thinks differently." 

Cecilia was so amazed at being told OTiy thing 
that she only stared again, and, opening a wide 
mouth, popped into it such a great piece of 
orange that she could not speak for some min- 
utes. 

" Cecilia has certainly attained years of dis- 
cretion," said her great-aunt; "she does not 
compromise herself by giving any opinion on 
matters she does not understand." Then the 
old lady got up and slowly led the way back to 
the drawing-room again, across the great etnpty 
hall. 

Notwithstanding her outward imperturbabil- 
ity, Cecilia was a little stirred and interested 
by this history, and by the short conversation 
which had preceded it, and after an hour's silence 
she ceased working, and looked up from the em- 
broidered shaving-cloth she was making. Her 
mother was sitting upright in her chair as usual, 
netting with vigorous action. Her large foot 
outstretched, her stiff bony hands working and 
jerking monotonously. Her father was dozing 
in his arm-chair; old Mrs. Dormer, too, was 
nodding in her corner. The monotonous IMaria 
was stitching in the lamplight. Gray and black 
shadows loomed all round her. The far end 
of the room was quite dark ; the great curtains 
swept from their ancient cornices. Cecilia, for 
the first time in all her life, wondered whether 
she should live all her life in this spot — ever go 
away? It seemed impossible, unnatural, that 
she should ever do so. Silent, dull as it was, 
she was used to it, and did not know what was 

amiss Was any thing amiss ? Mrs. 

Charles Lulworth certainly seemed to think so. 
She made the tea in fi'owns and silence, and 
closed the lid of the teapot with a clink which 
re-echoed through the room. 

Young Fi-ank Lulworth, the lawyer of the 
fomily — John Lulworth's eldest son — it was 
who had found it all out. His fiither wrote that 
with Mrs. Dormer's permission he proposed 
coming down in a day or two to show her the 
papers, and to explain to her personally how the 
matter stood. "My son and I," said John 
Lulworth, " both feel that this would be far more 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD. 



143 



agreeable to our feelings, and perhaps to yours, 
than having recourse to the usual professional 
intervention, for we have no desire to press our 
claims for the present, and we only wish that in 
the ultimate disposal of your property you should 
be aware how the matter really stands. We 
have always been led to suppose that the estate 
actually in question has been long destined by 
you for your grand-niece, Cecilia Lulworth. I 
hear from our old friend Dr. Hicks, that she is 
remarkably pretty and very amiable. Perhaps 
such vague possibilities are best unmentioned, 
but it has occurred to me that in the event of a 
mutual understanding springing up between the 
young folks — my son and your grand-niece — 
the connection might be agreeable to us all, and 
lead to a renewal of that family intercourse 
which has been, to my great regret, suspended 
for some time past." 

Old Mrs. Dormer, in her shaky Italian hand- 
writing, answered her nephew's letter by return 
of post: — 

" Mt dear Nephew, — I must acknowledge 
the receipt of your epistle of the 13th instant. 
By all means invite your son to pay us his pro- 
posed visit. We can then talk over business 
matters at our leisure, and young Francis can 
be introduced to his relatives. Although a 
long time has elapsed since we last met, believe 
me, my dear nephew, not unmindful of bygone 
associations, and yours very truly always, 

"C. Dormer.'' 

The letter was in the postman's bag when old 
Mrs. Dormer informed Mrs. Charles of what she 
had done. 

Frank Lulworth thought tliat in all his life 
he had never seen any thing so dismal, so si- 
lent, so neglected, as Dorlicote Park, when he 
drove up a few days after, through the iron 
gates and along the black laurel wilderness 
which led to the house. The laurel branches, 
all unpruned, untrained, were twisting savage- 
ly in and out, wreathing and interlacing one 
another, clutching tender shootings, wrestling 
with the young oak-trees and the limes. He 
passed by black and sombre avenufes leading to 
mouldy temples, to crumbling summer-houses ; 
he saw what had once been a flower-garden now 
all run to seed — wild, straggling, forlorn; a 
broken-down bench, a heap of hurdles lying on 
the ground, a field-mouse darting across the 
road, a desolate autumn sun shining upon all 
this mouldering ornament and confusion. It 
seemed moi-e forlorn and melancholy by con- 
trast, somehow, coming as he did out of the 
loveliest country and natural sweetness into the 
dark and tangled wilderness within these lime- 
stone walls of Dorlicote. 

The parish of Dorlicote- cum -Rockington 
looks prettier in the autumn than at any other 
time. A hundred crisp tints, jeweled rays — 
grays, browns, purples, glinting golds, and sil- 
vers, rustle and sparkle upon the branches of 



the nut-trees, of the bushes and thickets. Soft 
blue mists and purple tints rest upon the distant 
hills; scarlet berries glow among the bi'own 
leaves of the hedges ; lovely mists fall and van- 
ish suddenly, revealing bright and sweet au- 
tumnal sights ; blackberries, stacks of corn, 
bi-own leaves, crisping upon the turf, great pears 
hanging sweetening in the sun over the cottage 
lintels, cows grazing and whisking their tails, 
blue smoke curling from the tall form chimneys : 
all is peaceful, prosperous, golden. You can 
see the sea on clear days from certain knolls 
and hillocks 

Out of all these pleasant sights young Lul- 
worth came into this dreary splendor. He 
heard no sounds of life — he saw no one. His 
coachman had opened the iion gate. " They 
doan't keep no one to moind the gate," said the 
driver; "only tradesmen cooms to th' 'ouse." 
Even the gai-dener and his boy were out of the 
way ; and when they got sight of the house at 
last, many of the blinds were down and shutters 
shut, and only two chimneys were smoking. 
There was some one living in the place, how- 
ever, for a watch-dog who was lying asleep in 
his kennel woke up and gave a heart-rending 
howl when Frank got out and rang at the bell. 

He had to wait an immense time before any 
body answered, although a little page in but- 
tons came and stared at him in blank amaze- 
ment from one of the basement windows, and 
never moved. Through the same window Frank 
could see into the kitchen, and he was amused 
when a sleepy fat cook came up behind the lit- 
tle page and languidly boxed his ears, and or- 
dered him off the premises. 

The butler, who at last answered the door, 
seemed utterly taken aback — nobody had call- 
ed for months past, and here was a perfect 
stranger taking out his card, and asking for 
Mrs. Dormer as if it was the most natural 
thing in the world. The under-butler was 
half asleep in his pantry, and had not heard the 
door-bell. The page — the very same whose ears 
had been boxed— came wondering to the door, 
and went to ascertain whether Mrs. Dormer 
would see the gentleman or not. 

" What a vault, what a catacomb, what an 
ugly old place!" thought Frank, as he waited. 
He heard steps far, far away: then came a long 
silence, and then a heavy tread slowly approach- 
ing, and the old butler beckoned to him to fol- 
low — through a cobweb-color room, through a 
brown room, through a gray room, into a great 
dim drab drawing-room, where the old lady was 
sitting alone. She had come down her back 
stairs to receive him ; it was years since she 
had left her room before dinner. 

Even old ladies look kindly upon a tall, well- 
built, good-looking, good-humored young man. 
Frank's nose was a little too long, his mouth a 
little too straight; but he was a liandsome 
young fellow with a charming manner. Only 
as he came up he was somewhat shy and unde- 
cided — he did not know exactly how to address' 
the old lady. This was his great-aunt. He 



Ui 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS, 



knew nothing whatever about lier, but she was 
very rich ; she had invited him to come, and 
she had a kind face, he thought : should he — 
ought he to embrace her — perhaps he ought, 
and he made the slightest possible movement in 
this direction. Mrs. Dormer, divining his ob- 
ject, pushed him weakly away. " How do 
you do? No embraces, thank you. I don't 
care for kissing at my age. Sit down— there, 
in that chair opposite — and now tell me about 
your father, and all the family, and about this 
ridiculous discovery of yours. I don't believe 
a word of it." 

The interview between them was long and 
satisfactory, on the whole. The unconscious Ce- 
cilia and Miss Bowie}' returned that afternoon 
from their usual airing, and, as it happened, 
Cecilia said, "Oh, Maria! I left my mittens 
in the drawing-room last night. I will go and 
fetch them." And little thinking of what was 
awaiting her, she flung open the door and march- 
ed in through the anteroom — mushroom hat and 
brown veil, galoches and dowdy gown, as usual. 
" What is this ?" thought young Lulworth ; 
"why, who would have supposed it was such a 
pretty girl;" for suddenly the figure stopped 
short, and a lovely fresh face looked up in utter 
amazement out of the hideous disguise. 

" There, don't stare, child," said the old lady. 
"This is Francis Lulworth, a very intelligent 
young man, who has got hold of your fortune 
and ruined all your chances, my dear. lie 
wanted to embrace me just now. Francis, you 
may as well salute your cousin instead : she is 
much more of an age for such compliments," 
said Mrs. Dormer, waving her hand. 

The impassive Cecilia, perfectly bewildered 
and not in the least understanding, only turn- 
ed her great sleepy astonished eyes upon her 
cousin, and stood perfectly still, as if she was 
one of those beautiful wax-dolls one sees stuck 
up to be stared at. And, indeed, a stronger- 
minded person than Cecilia might have been 



taken aback, who had come into the drawing- 
room to fetch her mittens, to be met in such an 
astounding fashion. If she had been surprised 
before, utter consternation can scarcely convey 
her state of mind when young Lulworth step- 
ped forward and obeyed her aunt's behest. 
Frank, half laughing, half kindly, seeing that 
Cecilia stood quite still and stared at him, sup- 
posed it was expected, and did as he was told. 

The poor girl gave one gasp of horror, and 
blushed for the first time, I believe, in the course 1 
of her whole existence. Bowley, fixed and open- [ 
mouthed from the inner room, suddenly fled j 
with a scream, which recalled Cecilia to a sense 
of outraged propriety; for, blushing and blink- 
ing more deeply, she at last gave three little , 
sobs, and then, oh horror! burst into tears ! I 

" Highty-tighty ; what a much ado about 
nothing !" said the old lady, losing her temper 
and feeling not a little guilty, and much alarm- 
ed as to what her niece Mrs. Lulworth might 
say were she to come on the scene. 

" I beg your pardon. I am so very, very sor- ; 



ry," said the young man, quite confused and 
puzzled. "I ought to have known better. I 
frigiitened you. I am your cousin, you know, 
and really — pray, pray excuse my stupidity," 
he said, looking anxiously into the fair placid 
face along which the tears were coursing in two 
streams, like a child's. 

" Such a thing never happened in all my life 
before," said Cecilia. "I know it is wrong to 
cry, but really — really — " 

" Leave oft" crying directly, miss," said her 
aunt, testily, "and let us have no more of this 
nonsense." The old lady dreaded the mother's 
arrival every instant. Frank, half laughing, 
but quite unhappy at the poor girl's distress, 
had taken up his hat to go that minute, not 
knowing what else to do. 

' ' Ah ! you're going, " says old Mrs. Dormer ; 
"no wonder. Cecilia, you have driven your 
cousin away by your rudeness." 

"I am not rude," sobbed Cecilia. " I can't 
help crying." 

"The girl is a greater idiot than I took her 
for," cried the old lady. " She has been kept 
here locked up, until she has not a single idea 
left in her silly noddle. No man of sense could 
endure her for five minutes. You wish to leave 
the place, I see, and no wonder ?" 

' ' I really think, " said Frank, ' ' that under the 
circumstances it is the best thing I can do. 
Miss Lulworth, I am sure, would wish me to 
go." 

" Certainly," said Cecilia. " Go away, pray 
go away. Oh, how silly I am !" 

Here was a catastrophe ! 

The poor old fairy was all puzzled and be- 
wildered : her arts were powerless in this emer- 
gency. The princess had awakened, but in 
tears. Although he had said he was going, the 
prince still stood by, distressed and concerned, 
feeling horribly guilty, and j-et scarcely able to 
help laughing; and at that instant, to bring 
matters to a climax, Mrs. Lulworth's gaunt fig- 
ure appeared at the drawing-room door. 

" I wash my hands of the whole concern," 
said Mrs. Dormer, limping off to her corner in a 
great hurry and flutter. "Your daughter is 
only a few degrees removed from an idiot, 
ma'am." 

Poor Cecilia! her aunt's reproaches only 
scared her more and more ; and for the first 
time in her life she was bewildered, discom- 
posed, forgetful of hours. It was the hour of 
calisthenics; but Miss Lulworth forgot every 
thing that might have been expected from a 
young lady of her admirable bringing up. 

" Oh mamma, I didn't mean to be rude," re- 
peated Cecilia, crying still, and the sweet, wet, 
vacant face, looked imploringly and despairingly 
up into Frank's. " I'm so sorry, please forgive 
me," she said. 

He looked so kind, so amused, so gentle and 
handsome, that Cecilia actually felt less afraid 
of him at this moment than she did of her moth- 
er, who, with tight lips and sharp eyes, was sur- 
veying the two. 



CINDERELLA. 



"Go and take off your galoclics and your 
walking-dress, Cecilia," said Mrs. Luhvortli, 
exactly in her visual voice, " and do not come 
down without your apron." 

In a few minutes, when Cecilia returned, 
blushing and more lovely than ever, in her great 
fipron and dark stuff dress, it was to find her 
cousin comfortably installed in a big easy-chair, 
and actually talking above his breath to Miss 
'owley. He sprang up and came to meet the 
gill, and held out his hand, "In token that you 
forgive me," he said. 

"I thought it was I who had been rude and 
unkind," Cecilia f^ilteringly said. " How good 
of you not to be vexed !" 

" Cecilia," said Mrs. Lulworth and Miss 
Bowley both at once, in different tones of warn- 
ing ; but the princess was awake now, and her 
simplicity and beauty touched the young prince, 
•who never, I think, really intended to go, even 
when he took up his hat. Fairy tales are never 
very long, and this one ought to come to an 
end. 

Certainly the story would not have been worth 



the telling if they had not been married soon af- 
ter, and lived happily all the rest of their lives. 

* « * ^|c He * 

It is not in fairy tales only that things fall 
out as one could wish, and indeed, as H. and I 
agreed the other night that fairies, altliough in- 
visible, have not entirely vanished out of the 
land. 

It is certainly like a fiiiry transformation to 
see Cecilia nowadays in her own home with her 
children and husband about her. Bright, mer- 
ry, full of sympathy and interest, she seems to 
grow prettier every minute. 

When Frardc fell in love with her and pro- 
posed, old Mrs. Dormer insisted upon instantly 
giving up the Dorlicote Farm for the young 
people to live in. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lul- 
worth are obliged to live in London, but they 
go there every summer with their children ; and 
for some years after her marriage, Cecilia's god- 
mother, who took the opportunity of the wed- 
ding to break through many of her recluse hab- 
its, used to come and see her every day in a 
magnificent yellow chariot. 



C I N D E-R E L L A 



It is, happily, not only in fairy tales that 
things sometimes fixll out as one could wish, 
that anxieties are allayed, mistakes explained 
UAvay, friends reconciled; that people. inherit 
large fortunes, or are found out in their nefari- 
ous schemes ; that long-lost children are discov- 
ered disguised in soot, that vessels come safely 
sailing into port after the storm ; and that young 
folks who have been faithful to one another are 
married off at last. Some of these young 
couples are not only happily married, but they 
also begin life in pleasant palaces tastefully dec- 
orated, and with all the latest improvements; 
with convenient cupboards, bath-rooms, back 
staircases, speaking-tubes, lifts from one story to 
another, hot and cold water laid on ; while out- 
side lie well-kept parks, and gardens, and flow- 
er-beds ; and from the muslin-veiled windows 
they can see the sheep browsing, the long shad- 
owy grass, deer starting across the sunny glade.s 
swans floating on the rivers, and sailing through 
the lilies and tall lithe reeds. There are fruit- 
gardens, too, where great purple plums are sun- 
ning on the walls, and cucumbers lying asleep 
among their cool dark leaves. Thei'c are glass- 
houses where heavy dropping bunches of grapes 
are hanging, so that one need only open one's 
mouth for tliem to fall into it all ready cooked 
and sweetened. Sometimes, in addition to 
all these good things, the young couple pos- 
sess all the gracious gifts of youth, beauty, gay 
and amiable dispositions. Some one said, the 
other day, that it seemed as if Fate scarcely 
knew what she was doing, when she lavished 
with such profusion every gift and delight upon 
K 



one pair of heads, while others were left bald, 
shorn, unheeded, disheveled, forgotten, dishon- 
ored. And yet the world would be almost too 
sad to bear, if one did not sometimes see hap- 
])iness somewhere. One would scarcely believe 
in its possible existence, if there was nobody 
young, fortunate, prosperous, delighted ; nobody 
to think of with satisfaction, and to envy a lit- 
tle. The sight of great happiness and prosper- 
ity is like listening to harmonious music, or look- 
ing at beautiful pictures, at certain times of one's 
life. It seems to suggest possibilities, it sets sad 
folks longing; but while they are wishing, still, 
maybe, a little reproachfully, they realize the 
existence of what perhaps they had doubted be- 
fore. Fate has been hard to them, but there is 
compensation even in this life, they tell them- 
selves. AVhich of us knows when his turn may 
come ? Happiness is a fact : it does lie within 
some people's grasp. To this or that young 
fairy couple, age, trial, and trouble may be in 
store ; but now at least the present is golden ; 
the innocent delights and triumphs of youth and 
nature are theirs. 

I could not help moralizing a little in this 
way, when we were staying with young Lulworth 
and his wife the other day, coming direct from 
the struggling dull atmosphere of home to the 
golden placidity of Lulworth farfti. They drove 
us over to Cliffe Court — another oasis, so it 
seemed to me, in the arid plains of life. Cliffe 
Court is a charming, cheerful Italian-looking 
house, standing on a hill in the midst of a fiery 
furnace of geraniums and flower-beds. " It be- 
longs to young Sir Charles Richardson. He is 



146 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



six-anJ-twenty, and the handsomest man in tlie 
county," said Frank. 

" (3h no, Frank ; you are joking, surely," said 
Cecilia; and then she stai-ed, and then blushed 
in her odd wa3^ She still stared sometimes 
when she was shy, as she used to do before she 
married. 

So much of her former habits Cecilia had also 
retained, that as the clock struck eight every 
morning a great punctual breakfast-bell used to 
ring in the outer hall. Tlie dining-room case- 
ment was wide open upon the beds of roses, the 
tea was made, Cecilia in her crisp white morn- 
ing dress, and with all her wavy bronze hair 
curling about her face, was waiting to pour it 
out, the eggs were boiled, the bacon was friz- 
zling hot upon the plate to a moment; there 
was no law allowed, not a minute's grace for 
any body, no matter how lazy. They had been 
married a little more than two years, and were 
quite established in their country home. I wish 
I could perform some incantation like those of 
my friends the fairies, and conjure up the old 
farm bodily with a magic wave of my pen, or by 
drawing a triangle with a circle through it upon 
>v the paper, as the enchanters do. The 

v'X'jV most remarkable things about the 
farm were its curious and beautiful 
old chimneys — indeed the whole county of Sus- 
sex is celebrated for them, and the meanest lit- 
tle cottages have noble-looking stacks all orna- 
mented, carved, and weather-beaten. There 
were gables, also, and stony mullioned windows, 
and ancient steps with rusty rings hanging to 
them, affixed there to fasten the bridles of horses 
that would have run away several hundred years 
ago, if this precaution had not been taken. And 
then there were storehouses and ricks and barns, 
all piled with the abundance of the harvest. The 
farm-yard was alive with young fowls and cocks 
and hens ; and guinea-hens, those gentle little 
dowagers, went about glistening in silver and 
gray, and Cecilia's geese came clamoring to 
meet her. I can sec it all as I think about it. 
The old walls are all canned and ornamented, 
sometimes by art and work of man's hand, some- 
times by time and lovely little natural mosses. 
House-leeks grow in clumps upon the thatch, a 
pretty girl is peeping through a lattice window, 
a door is open, while a rush of sweet morning 
scent comes through the shining oaken passage 
from the herb-garden and orchard behind. Cows 
with their soft brown eyes and cautious tread are 
passing on their way to a field across the road. 
A white horse waiting by his stable door shakes 
his head and whinnies. 

Frank and Cecilia took us for a walk after 
breakfast the first morning we came. We were 
taken to the stables first and the cow-houses, and 
then we passed tut through a gate into a field, 
and crossing the field we got iato a copse which 
skirted it, and so by many a lovely little wind- 
ing path into the woods. Young Lulworth took 
our delight and admiration as a pei'sonal com- 
pliment. It was all Lulworth property as far 
as we could see. I thought it must be strange- 



ly delightful to be the possessor of such beauti- 
ful hills, mist, sunshine and shadow, violet tones, 
song of birds, and shimmer of foliage ; but 
Frank, I believe, looked at his future prospects 
from a material point of view. "You see it 
ain't the poetic part of it which pays," he said. 
But he appreciated it nevertheless, for Cecilia 
came out of the woods that morning, all decked 
out with great convolvulus leaves, changed to 
gold, which Frank had gathered as we went 
along and given to her. This year all the leaves 
were turning to such beautiful colors that peo- 
ple remarked upon it, and said they never re- 
membered such a glowing autumn ; even the 
year when Frank came to Dorlicote was not to 
compare to it. Browns and russet, and bright 
amber and gold flecks, berries, red leaves, a love- 
ly blaze and glitter in the woods along the lanes 
and beyond the fields and copses. All the hills 
were melting with lovely color in the clear 
warm autumn air, and the little nut-wood paths 
seemed like Aladdin's wonderful gardens, where 
precious stones hung to the trees ; there was a 
twinkle and crisp shimmer, yellow leaves and 
golden light, yellow light and golden leaves, red 
hawthorn, convolvulus-berries, holly-berries be- 
ginning to glow, and heaped-up clustering pur- 
ple blackberries. The sloe-berries, or snowy 
blackthorn fruit, with their soft gloom of color, 
were over, and this was the last feast of the year. 
On the trees the apples hung red and bright, the 
pears seemed ready to drop from their branches 
and walls, the wheat was stacked, the sky looked 
violet behind the yellow ricks. A blackbird was 
singing like a ripple of water, somebody said. 
It is hard to refrain from writing of all these 
lovely things, though it almost is an imperti- 
nence to attempt to set them down on paper in 
long lists, like one of Messrs. Rippon and- Bur- 
ton's circulars. As we were walking along the 
high-road on our way back to the farm, we pass- 
ed a long pale melancholy-looking man riding a 
big horse, with a little sweet-faced creature about 
sixteen who was cantering beside him. 

He took ofi^ his hat, the little girl kissed her 
hand as they passed, nodding a gay triumphant 
nod, and then we watched them down the hill, 
and disappearing at the end of the lane. 

" I am quite glad to see Ella Ashford out 
riding with her father again," said Lulworth, 
holding the garden gate open for us to pass in. 

"Mrs. Ashford called here a day or two ago 
with her daughter," said Cecilia. "They're 
going to stay at the Ravenhill, she told me. I 
thought Colonel Ashford was gone too. I sup- 
pose he is come back." 

"Of course he is," said Frank, "since we 
have just seen him with Ella, and of course his 
wife is away for the same reason." 

" The child has grown very thin," said H. 

"She has a difficult temper," said Cecilia — 
who, once she got an idea into her soft, silly 
head, did not easily get rid of it again. "She 
is a great anxiety to poor Mrs. Ashford. She 
is very different, she tells me, to Julia and Lisette 
Garnier, her own daughters." 



CINDERELLA. 



14; 



" I knew them when they were children," said 
H. " We used to see a great deal of Mrs. Ash- 
ford when she was first a widow, and 1 went to 
her second wedding." 

We were at Paris one year — ten years before 
the time I am writing of — and Mrs. Gamier 
lived over us, in a tiny little apartment. She 
was very poor, and very grandly dressed, and 
she used to come rustling in to see us. Rust- 
ling is hardly the word, she was much too grace- 
ful and womanly a person to rustle ; her long 
silk gowns used to ripple, and wave, and flow 
away as she came and went ; and her beautiful 
eyes used to fill with tears as she drank licr tea 
and confided her troubles to us. H. never liked 
her; but I must confess to a very kindly feeling 
for the poor, gentle, beautiful, forlorn young 
creature, so passionately lamenting the loss she 
had sustained in Major-General Gamier. lie 
had left her very badly off, although she was 
well connected, and Lady Jane Peppercorne, 
her cousin, had offered her and her two little 
girls a home at Ravenhill, she used to tell us in 
her €})lore manner. I do not know why she 
never availed herself of the oifer. She said once 
that she would not be doing justice to her pre- 
ciouslittle ones, to whom she devoted herself with 
the assistance of an experienced attendant. ]\Iy 
impression is, that the little ones used to scrub 
one another's little ugly faces, and plait one 
another's little light Chinese-looking tails, while 
the experienced attendant laced and dressed 
and adorned, and scented and powdered tlieir 
mamma. She really was a beautiful young 
woman, and would have looked quite charming 
if she had left herself alone for a single instant, 
but she was always posing. She had dark bright 
eyes ; she had a lovely little arched mouth ; and 
hands so white, so soft, so covered with rings, 
that one felt that it was indeed a privilege when 
she said, "Oh, //o^f do you do?" and extended 
two or three gentle confiding fingers. At first 
she went nowhere except to church, and to walk 
in the retired paths of the Park de Mon^eau, 
although she took in Galignani and used to read 
the lists of arrivals. But by degrees she began 
to — chiefly to please me, she said — go out a lit- 
tle, to make a few acquaintances. One day I 
was walking with her down the Champs Elysees, 
when she suddenly started and looked up at a 
tall, melancholy -looking gentleman who was 
passing, and who stared at her very hard ; and 
soon after that it was that she began telling me 
she had determined to make an eflfort for her 
children's sake, and to go a little more into so- 
ciety. She wanted me to take her to Madame 
de Girouette's, where she heard I was going one 
evening, and where she believed she should meet 
an old friend of hers, wliom she particularly 
wished to see again. Would I help her? Would 
I be so verij good ? Of course I was ready to 
do any thing I could. She came punctual to 
her time, all gray moire and black lace ; a remise 
was sent for, and we set off, jogging along the 
crowded streets, with our two lamps lighted, and 



a surly man, in a red waistcoat and an oilskin 
hat, to drive us to the Rue de Lille. All the 
way there, ]\Irs. Gamier was strange, silent, 
nervous, excited. Her eyes were like two shin- 
ing craters, I thought, when we arrived, and as 
we climbed up the interminable flights of stairs. 
I guessed which was the old friend in a minute : 
a tall, well-looking, sick-looking man with a 
gray mustache, standing by himself in a cor- 
ner. 

I spent a curious evening, distracted between 
Madame de Girouette's small-talk, to which I 
was supposed to be listening, and Mrs. Garnier's 
murmured conversation with her old friend in 
the corner, to which I was vainly endeavoring 
not to attend. 

" My dear, imagine a bouillon surmounted 
with little tiny flutings all round the bottom, 
and then three ruches, alternating with three lit- 
tle volants, with great chovx at regular intervals ; 
over this a tunic, caught up at the side by a 
jardiniere, a ceinture a la Be'Lc." 

"When you left us I was a child, weak, fool- 
ish, easily frightened and influenced. It nearly 
broke my heart. Look me in the face if you 
can, and tell me you do not believe me," I heard 
Mrs. Garnier murmuring in a low thrilling whis- 
per. She did not mean me to hear it, but she 
was too absorbed in what she was saying to think 
of all the people round about her. 

" Ah, Lydia, what does it matter now?" the 
friend answered in a sad voice which touched 
me somehow. "We have both been wrecked 
in our ventures, and life has not much left for 
either of us now." 

"It is cut en /^ifl?s," Madame de Girouette 
went on ; " the pieces which are taken out at 
one end are let in at the other: the effect is 
quite charming, and the economy is immense." 

" For you, you married the person you loved," 
Lydia Garnier was answering ; " for me, out of 
the wreck I have at least my children, and a re- 
membrance and a friend — is it so ? Ah, Hen- 
r}', have I not at least a friend?" 

" Every body wants one," said Madame de 
Girouette, concluding her conversation, "and 
they can not be made fast enough to supply the 
demand. I am promised mine to wear to-mor- 
row at the opening of the salon, but I am afraid 
that you have no chance. How the poor thing 
is over-worked — her magazine is crowded — I 
believe she will leave it all in charge of her pre- 
miere demoiselle, and retire to her campagne 
as soon as the season is over." 

" And you will come and see me, will you 
not?" said the widow, as we went away, looking 
up at her friend. I do not know to this day if 
she was acting. I believe, to do her justice, 
that she was only acting what she really felt, as 
many of us do at times. 

I took Mrs. Garnier home, as I agreed. I 
did not ask any questions. I met Colonel Ash- 
ford on the stairs next day, and I was not sur- 
prised when, about a week after, Mrs. Garnier 
flitted into the drawing-room early one morn- 
ing, and, sinking down at my feet in a careless 



U8 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



attitude, seized my hand, and said that she liad 
come for counsel, for advice 

She liad had an offer from a person whom 
she respected, Cokmel Ashford, whom I might 
liave remarked that niglit atMadamedeGirou- 
ette's; would I — would I give her my candid 
opinion ; for her children's sake, did I not think 
it would be well to think seriously? .... 

"And for your own, too, my dear," said I. 
" Colonel Ashford is in Parliament, he is very 
well off. I believe you will be making an ex- 
cellent marriage. Accept him, by all means." 

' ' Dear friend, since this is your real heartfelt 
opinion, I value your judgment too highly not 
to act by its dictates. Once, years ago, there 
was tiiought of this between me and Henry. I 
will now confide to you, my heart has never fail- 
ed from its early devotion. A cruel fate sepa- 
rated us. I married. He married. We are 
brought together as by a miracle, but our three 
children will never know the loss of their parents' 
love," etc. etc. Glance, hand, pressure, etc. — 
tears, etc., Then a long, soft, irritating kiss. I 
felt for the first time in my life inclined to box 
her ears. 

The little Garniers certainly gained by tlie 
bargain, and the Colonel sat down to write home 
to his little daughter, and tell her the news. 

Poor little Ella, I wonder what sort of anx- 
ieties Mrs. Ashford had caused to her before 
she had been Ella's father's wife a year. Miss 
Ashford made the best of it. She was a cheery, 
happy little creature, looking at every thing from 
the sunny side, adoring herfiither, running wild 
out of doors, but with an odd turn for housekeep- 
ing, and order and method at home. Indeed, 
for the last two years, ever since she was twelve 
years old, she had kept herfather's house. Lan- 
guid, gentle, easily impressed, Colonel Ashford 
was quite curiously influenced by this little 
daughter. She could make him come and go, 
and like and dislike. I think it was Ella who 
sent him into Parliament ; she could not bear 
Sir Rainham Richardson, their next neighbor, 
to be an M.P., and an oracle, while her father 
was only a retired colonel. Her ways and her 
sayings were a strange and pretty mixture of 
childishness and precociousness. She would be 
ordering dinner, seeing that the fires were alight 
in the study and dining-room, writing notes to 
save her father trouble (Colonel Ashford hated 
trouble) in her cramped, crooked, girlish hand ; 
the next minute she was perhaps flying, agile- 
footed, round and round the old hall, skipping 
np and down the oak stairs, laughing out like a 
child as she played with her puppy, and dangled 
a little ball of string under his black nose. Puff, 
with a youthful bark, would seize the ball and 
go scuttling down the corridors with his prize, 
while Ella pursued him with her quick flying 
feet. She could sing charmingly, with a clear 
true piping voice, like a bird's, and she used to 
dance to her own singing in the prettiest way 
imaginable. Her dancing was really remark- 
able : she bad the most beautiful feet and hands. 



and as she seesawed in time, still singing and 
moving in rhythm, any one seeing her could not 
fail to have been struck by the weird-like little 
accomplishment. Some girls have a passion for 
dancing — boys have a hundred other ways and 
means of giving vent to their activity and exer- 
I cising their youthful limbs, and putting out their 
! eager young strength ; but girls have no such 
j chances; they are condemned to walk through 
! life, for tlie most part, quietly, soberly, putting a 
curb on the life and vitality which is in them. 
I They long to throw it out, they would like to have 
wings to fly like a bird, and so they dance some- 
i times with all their hearts and might and energy. 
People rarely talk of the poetry of dancing, but 
there is something in it of the real inspiration of 
art. The music plays, the heart beats time, 
the movements flow as naturally as the branch- 
es of a tree go waving in the wind 

One day a naughty boy, who had run away, 
for a lark, from his tutor and his school-room 
at Cliffe, hard by, and who was hiding in a 
ditch, happened to see Ella alone in a field. 
She was looking up at the sky and down at 
the pretty scarlet and white pimpernels, and 
listening to the birds ; suddenly she felt so 
strong and so light, and as if she mvst jump 
about a little, she was so happy ; and so she 
did, shaking her pretty golden mane, waving 
her poppies high overhead, and singing higher 
and higher, like one of the larks that were float- 
ing in mid air. The naughty boy was much 
frightened, and firmly believed that he had seen 
a fairy. 

" She was all in white," he said afterwards, 
in an aggrieved tone of voice. " She'd no hat, 
or any thing ; she bounded six foot into the air. 
You never saw any thing like it." 

I^Iaster Richardson's guilty conscience had 
something to do with his alarm. When his 
friends made a few facetious inquiries he an- 
swered quite sulkily : " Black pudden ? she 
offered me no pudden or any thing else. I only 
wish you had been there, that's all, then you'd 
believe a fellow when he says a thing, instead 
of always chaflSng." 

Ella gave up her dancing after the new wife 
came to Ash Place. It was all so different ; 
she was not allowed any more to run out into 
the fields alone. She supposed it was very nice 
having two young companions like Lisette and 
Julia, and at first, in her kindly way, the child 
did the honors of her own home, showed them 
the way which led to her rabbits, her most se- 
cret bird's-nest, the old ivy-grown smugglers' 
hole in the hollow. Lisette and Julia went 
trotting about in their frill trowsers antl Chinese 
tails of hair, examining every thing, making 
their calculations, saying nothing, taking it all 
in (poor little Ella was rather puzzled, and 
could not make them out). Meantime her new 
mother was gracefully wandering over the house 
on her husband's arm, and standing in attitudes, 
admiring the view from the windows, and asking 
gentle little indifferent questions, to all of which 
Colonel Ashford replied unsuspectingly enough. 



CINDERELLA. 



149 



"And so you give the child an allowance? 
Is she not very young for one ? And is this 
Ella's room ? how prettily it is furnished !" 

" She did it all herself," said her father, smil- 
ing. ' ' Look at her rocking-horse, and her dolls' 
house, and her tidy little arrangements." 

The housekeeping books were in a little pile 
on the table ; a very suspicious-looking doll 
was lying on the bed, so were a pile of towels, 
half marked, but neatly folded ; there was a 
bird singing in a cage, a squirrel, a little aged 
(log — Puff's grandmother — asleep on a cushion, 
some sea-anemones in a glass, gaping with 
their horrid mouths, strings of birds' eggs were 
suspended, and whips were hanging up on the 
walls. There was a great bunch of flowers in 
the window, and a long daisy-chain fastened 
up in festoons round the glass; and then on 
the toilet-table there were one or two valuable 
trinkets set out in their little cases 

" Dear me," said Mrs. Ashford, " is it not a 
pity to leave such temptation in the way of the 
servants? Little careless thing — had I not bet- 
ter keep them for her, Henry ? they are very 
beautiful." And Mrs. Ashford softly collected 
Ella's treasures in her long white hands. 

" Ella has some very valuable things," Colo- 
nel Ashford said. "She keeps them locked up 
in a strong box, I believe ; yes, there it is in the 
corner." 

" It had much better come into my closet," 
Mrs. Ashford said. " Oh, how heavy ! Come 
here, strong-arm, and help me." Colonel Ash- 
ford obediently took up the box as he was bid. 
■ " And I think I may as well finish marking 
the dusters," said Mrs. Ashford, looking around 
the room as she collected them all in her apron. 
"The books, of course, ai-e now my duty. I 
tliink Ella will not be sorry to be relieved of 
her cares. Do you know, dear, I think I am 
glad, for her sake, that you married me, as well 
as for my own. I think she has had too much 
put upon her, is a little too decided, too pronon- 
cce, for one so young. One would not wish 
to see her grow up before the time. Let them 
remain young and careless while they can, 
Henry." 

So when Ella came back to mark the dusters 
that she had been hemming, because Mrs. Mil- 
ton was in a liurry for them and the housemaid 
had hurt her eye, they were gone, and so were 
her neat little books that she had taken sucli 
pride in, and had been winding up before she 
gave them to Mrs. Asliford to keep in future ; 
so was her pretty coral necklace that she wore 
of an evening; and her pearls with the dia- 
mond clasp ; and her beautiful clear carbuncle 
brooch that she was so fond of, and her little 
gold clasp bracelet. Although Eliza and Susan 
had lived with them all her life long, t/ie!/ had 
never taken her things, poor Ella thought, a lit- 
tle bitterly. "Quite unsuitable at your age, 
dearest," Mrs. Ashford murmured, kissing her 
fondly. 

And Ella never got them back any more, 
^lany and many other things there were slie 



never got back, poor child. Ah me ! treasures 
dearer to her than the pretty coral necklace and 
the gold clasp bracelet — liberty, confidence — 
the tender atmosphere of admiring love in 
which she had always lived, the first place in 
her father's heart. That should never be hers 
again, some one had determined. 

The only excuse for Mrs. Ashford is that she 
was very much in love with her husband, and 
so selfishly attached to him that she grudged 
the very care and devotion which little Ella 
had spent upon her father all these years past. 
Every fresh proof of thought and depth of feel- 
ing in such a childish little creature hurt and 
vexed tlie other woman. Ella must be tauglit 
her place, this lady determined, not in so many 
words. Alas I if we could always set our evil 
thouglits and schemes to words, it would per- 
haps be well with us, and better far than drift- 
ing, unconscious, and unwarned, into nameless 
evil, unowned to one's self, scarcely recognized. 

And so the years went by. Julia and Li- 
sette grew up into two great tall fashionable 
bouncing young ladies ; they pierced their ears, 
turned up their pigtails, and dressed very ele- 
gantly. Lisette used to wear a coral necklace, 
Julia was partial to a clear carbuncle brooch her 
mother gave her. Little Ella, too, grew up like 
a little green plant springing up througlr the 
mild spring rains and the summer sunshine, 
taller and prettier and sadder every year. And 
yet perhaps it was as well after all that early in 
life she had to learn to be content with a A-ery 
little share of its bounties ; she might have been 
spoiled and over-indulged if things had gone on 
as they began, if nothing had ever thwarted 
her, and if all her life she had had her own 
way. She was a brigiit smiling little thing for 
all her worries, with a sweet little fiice ; indeed 
her beauty was so remarkable, and her manner 
so simple and charming, that Julia and Lisette, 
who were a year or two her elders, used to com- 
plain to their mother nobody ever noticed them 
when Ella was by. Lady Jane Peppercorne, 
their own cousin, was always noticing her, and 
actually gave her a potato off her own plate the 
other day. 

"I fear she is a very forward, designing girl. 
I shall not think of taking her out in London 
this j-ear," Mrs. Ashford said, with some asperi- 
ty ; "nor shall I allow her to appear at our 
croquet-party next week. She is far too young 
to be brought out." 

So Ella was desired to remain in her own 
room on this occasion. She nearly cried, poor 
little thing, but what could she do ? her father 
was away, and when he came back Mrs. Ash- 
ford would be sure to explain every thing to 
him. Mrs. Ashford had explained life to him 
in so strangely ingenious a manner that he had 
got to see it in a very tops)'-turvy fashion. 
Some things she had explained away altogeth- 
er, some she had distorted and twisted, poor lit- 
tle Ella had been explained and explained, un- 
til there was scarcely any thing of her left at 
all. Poor child, she sometimes wsed to think 



150 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



she had not a single friend in the world, but she 
would chide herself for such fancies : it must be 
fancy. Her father loved her as much as ever, but 
he was engrossed by business, and it was not to 
be expected he should show what he felt before 
Julia and Lisette, who might be hurt. And then 
Ella would put all her drawers in order, or sew 
a seam, or go out and pull up a bcdful of weeds, 
to chase such morbid fancies out of her mind. 

Lady Jane Peppercorne, of whom mention 
has been already made, had two houses, one in 
Onslow Square, another at Hampstead. She 
was very rich, she had never married, and was 
consequently far more sentimental than ladies 
of her standing usually are. She was a flighty 
old lady, and lived sometimes at one house, 
sometimes at the other, sometimes at hotels 
here and there, as the fancy seized her. She 
was very kind as well as flighty, and was con- 
stantly doing generous things, and trying to 
help any one who seemed to be in trouble or 
who appeared to wish for any thing she had it 
in her power to grant. 

So when Mrs. Ashford said, " Oh, Lady 
Jane, pity me! My husband says he can not 
aff'ord to take me to town this year. I should 
so like to go, for the dear girls' sake, of course — " 
Lady Jane gave a little grunt, and said, " I will 
lend you my house in Onslow Square, if you like 
— that is, if you keep my room ready for me in 
case I want to come up at any time. But I 
dare say you won't care for such an unfashiona- 
ble quarter of the world." 

"Oh Lady Jane, how exceedingly kind, how 
very delightful and unexpected!" cried Mrs. 
Ashford, who had been hoping for it all the 
time, and who hastened to communicate the 
news to Lisette and Julia. 

"I shall want a regular outfit, mamma," 
said Julia, who was fond of dress. "Perhaps 
we shall meet young Mr. Richardson in town." 

"I shall be snapped up directly by some 
one, I expect," said Lisette, who was veiy vain, 
and thought herself irresistible. 

"Am I to come too?" asked Ella, timidly, 
from the other end of the room, looking up 
from her sewing. 

"I do not know," replied her stepmother, 
curtly, and Ella sighed a little wistfully, and 
went on stitching. 

"At what age shall you let me come out?" 
she presently asked, shyly. 

" When you are fit to be trusted in the world, 
and have cured your unruly temper," said Mrs. 
Ashford. Ella's eyes filled with tears, and she 
blushed up ; but her father came into the room, 
and slie smiled through her tears, and thought 
to herself that since her temper was so bad, she 
had better begin to rule it that very instant. . . 
When Mrs. Ashford began to explain to her hus- 
band, however, how much better it would be for 
Ella to remain in the country, the child's wistful 
glance met his, and for once he insisted that she 
should not be left behind. 

It is a bright May morning after a night of 



rain, and although this is London and not the 
country any more, Onslow Square looks bright 
and clean. Lady Jane has had the house smartly 
done up ; clean chintz, striped blinds, a balcony 
full of mignonnette. She has kept two little 
rooms for herself and her maid, but all the rest 
of the house is at the Ashfords' disposal. Every 
body is satisfied, and Ella is enchanted with her 
little room up stairs. Mrs. Ashford is making 
lists of visits and dinner-parties and milliners' 
addresses ; Lisette is looking out of the window 
at some carriages which are passing; the chil- 
dren and nurses are sitting under the trees in 
the square ; Julia is looking at herself in the 
glass and practising her court courtesies ; and 
Ella is in the back room arranging a great heap 
of books in a bookcase. " I should so like to 
go to the Palace, mamma," she says, looking 
up with a smudgy face, for the books were all 
dirty and covered with dust. "Do you think 
there will be room for me ?" 

Ella had no proper pride, as it is called, and 
always used to take it for granted she was wanted, 
and that some accident prevented her from 
going with the others. "I am sorry there is 
no room for you, Ella," said Mrs. Ashford, in 
her deep voice ; " I have asked Mr. Richardson 
to come with us, and if he fails, I promised to 
call for the Countess Bricabrac. Pray, if you 
do not care for walking in the square this after- 
noon, see that my maid puts my things properly 
away in the cupboards, as well as Julia's and 
Lisette's, and help her to fold the dresses, be- 
cause it is impossible for one pei-son to manage 
these long trains unassisted." * 

"Very well," said Ella, cheerfully. "I hope 
you will have a pleasant day. How nice it must 
be to be going !" 

"I wish you would learn not to wish for 
every thing and any thing that you happen to 
hear about, Ella," said Mrs. Ashford. "And 
by the way, if you find any visitors coming, go 
away, for I can not allow you to be seen in this 
dirty state." 

"There's a ring," said Ella, gathering some 
of the books together. " Good-bye." 

Young Mr. Richardson, who was announced 
immediately after, passed a pretty maid-servant, 
carrying a great pile of folios, upon the stairs. 
She looked so little fitted for the task that he 
involuntarily stopped and said, "Can I assist 
you?" The little maid smiled and sliook her 
head, without speaking. "What a charming 
little creature !" thought Mr. Richardson. He 
came to say that he and his friend. Jack Pretty- 
man, were going to ride down together, and 
would join the ladies at the Palace. 

" We are to pick Colonel Ashford up at his 
club," Mrs. Ashford said, "and Madame de 
Bricabrac. Ishallcount upon you, then." And 
the young ladies waved him gracious au revoirs 
from tlie balcony. 

" Oh ! don't you like white waistcoats, Julia?" 
said Lisette, as she watched him down the street. 

Tiiey are gone. Ella went up to help with 
the dresses, but presently the maid said in her 



CINDERELLA. 



151 



rude way that she must go down to dinner, and 
she could not have any body messing the things 
about while she was away. Carter hated liaving 
a "spy" set over her, as she called Miss Ash- 
ford. The poor little spy went back to the 
drawing-room. She was too melancholy and 
out of spirits to dress herself and go out. Her 
face was still smudgy, and she had cried a little 
over Lisette's pink tarlatan. Her heart sank 
down, down, down. She did so long for a little 
fun and delight, and laughter and happiness. 
She knew her father would say, "Wliere is 
Ella?" and her mother would answer, "Oh, I 
really can not account for Ella's fancies. She 
was sulky this morning again. I can not man- 
age her strange tempers." 

The poor child chanced to sec her shabby face 
and frock and tear-stained cheeks in one of the 
tall glasses over the gilt tables. It was very 
silly, but the woe-begone little face touched her 
so ; she was so sorry for it that all of a sudden 
she burst out sob, sob, sob, crying. " Oh, how 
nice it must be to be loved and cherished, and 
very happy!" she thought. "Oh, I could be 
so good if they would only love me ! " She could 
not bear to think more directly of her father's 
cliange of feeling. She sat down on the floor, 
as she had a way of doing, all in a little heap, 
staring at the empty grate. The fire had burnt 
out, and no one had thought of re-lighting it. 
For a few minutes her tears overflowed, and she 
cried and cried in two rivulets down her black 
little face. She thought how forlorn she was, 
what a dull life she led, how alone she lived— 
such a rusli of regret and misery overpowered 
her, that she hid her face in her hands, uncon- 
scious ofany thing else but her own sadness 

She did not hear the bell ring, nor a carriage 
stop, nor Lady Jane's footsteps. Tliat lady came 
across the room and stood looking at her. 
"Why, my dear little creature, what is the 
matter?" said Lady Jane at last. "Crying? 
don't you know it is very naughty to cry, no 
matter how bad things are ? Are they all 
gone — are you all alone?" 

Ella jumped up quite startled, blushed, wiped 
her tears in a smudge. "I thought nobody 
would see me cry," she said, "for they are all 
gone to the Crystal Palace." 

"And did they leave you behind quite by 
yourself?" the old lady asked. 

"They were so sorry they had no room for 
me," said good-natured little Ella. She could 
not bear to hear people blamed. " They had 
promised Madame de Bricabrac." 

"Is that all?" said Lady Jane, in her kind 
imperious way. " Why, I have driven in from 
Hampstead on purpose to go there too. There's 
a great flower-show to-day, and you know I am 
a first-rate gardener. I've brought up a great 
hamper of things. Put on your bonnet, wash 
your face, and come along directly. I've plenty 
of room. Who is that talking in that rude 
way ?" for at that instant Carter called out with 
a sniff from the drawing-room door, without 
looking in : — 



"Now then, Miss Ella, you can come and 
help me fold them dresses. I'm in a hurry." 

Carter was much discomposed when, instead 
of her victim. Lady Jane appeared, irate, digni- 
fied. 

"Go up stairs directly, and do not forget 
yourself again," said the old lady. 

" Oh, I think I ought to go and fold up the 
dresses," said Ella, hesitating, flushing, blush- 
ing, and looking more than grateful. "How 
very kind, very kind of you to think of me ! I'm 
afraid they wouldn't — I'm afraid I've no bonnet. 
Oh, thank you, I — but — " 

"Nonsense, child," said Lady Jane; "my 
maid shall help that woman. Here," ringing 
the bell violently (to the footman), "what have 
you done with the hamper I brought up ? let 
me see it unpacked here immediately. Can't 
trust those people, my dear — always see to every 
thing myself." 

All sorts of delicious things, scents, colors, 
spring-flowers and vegetables, came out of the 
hamper in delightful confusion. It was a ham- 
per full of treasures — sweet, bright, delicious- 
tasted — asparagus, daff'odillies, bluebells, salads, 
cauliflowers, hothouse flowers, cowslips from the 
fields, azalias. Ella's natty little fingers arranged 
them all about the room in plates and in vases 
so perfectly and so quickly that old Lady Jane 
cried out in admiration : — 

"Why, you would be a first-rate girl, if you 
didn't cry. Here, you John, get some bowls 
and trays for the vegetables, green peas, straw- 
berries ; and oh, here's a cucumber and a nice 
little early pumpkin. I had it forced, my dear. 
Your stepmother tells me she is passionately 
fond of pumpkins. Here, John, take all this 
down to the cook ; tell her to put it in a cool 
larder, and order the carriage and horses round 
directly. Now then," to Ella, briskly, "go 
and put your things on, and come along with 
me. I'll make matters straight. I always do. 
There, go directly. I can't have the horses 
kept. Raton, my coachman, is terrible if he is 
kept waiting — frightens me to death by his 
driving when he is put out." 

Ella did not hesitate a moment longer ; she 
rushed up stairs : her little feet flew as they 
used to do formerly. She came down in a 
minute, panting, rapturous, with shining hair 
and a bright foce, in her very best Sunday 
frock, cloak, and hat. Shabby enough they 
were, but she was too happy, too. excited, to 
think about the deficiencies in her toilet. 
I "Dear me, this never will do, I see," said 
I the old lady, looking at her disapprovingly ; 
but she smiled so kindly, as she spoke, that 
I Ella was not a bit frightened. 

" Indeed, I have no other," she said. 

"John," cried the old lady, "where is rny 
maid ? Desire her to come and speak to mo 
directly. Now then, sir ! " 

All her servants knew her ways much too 
well not to fly at her commands. A maid ap- 
peared as if by magic. 

" Now, Batter, be quick ; get that blue and 



1J2 



FIVE OLD FKIENDS. 



silver bouiiious of mine from tlie box up stairs, 
— it will look very nice ; and a pair of gray kid 
gloves, Batter; and let me see, my dear, you 
wouldn't look well in a brocade. No, that gray 
satin skirt. Batter ; her own white bodice will 
do, and we can buy a bonnet as we go along. 
Now, quick ; am I to be kept waiting all day ?" 

Ella in a moment found herself transformed 
somehow into the most magnificent lady she 
had seen for many a day. It was like a dream, 
she could hardly believe it ; she saw herself 
move majestically, sweeping in silken robes 
across the very same pier-glass where a few 
minutes before she iiad looked at the wretched 
little melancholy creature crying with a dirty 
face, and watched the sad tears flowing. . . . 

"Now then — now then," cried Lady Jane, 
wlio was always saying "Now then," and urg- 
ing people on — "where's my page — are the 
outriders there ? They are all workhouse boys, 
my dear ; they come to me as thin and starved 
as church-mice, and then I fatten them up and 
get 'em situations. 1 always go with outriders. 
One's obliged to keep up a certain dignity in 
these Ciiartist days — universal reform — suffrage 
— vote by ballot. I've no patience with Mr. 
Gladstone, and it all rests with us to keep our- 
selves well aloof. Get in, get in ! Drive to 
Sydenham, if you please." 

Lady Jane's manners entirely changed when 
she spoke to Eaton. And it is a fact that 
coachmen from their tall boxes rule with a 
very high hand, and most ladies tremble before 
them. Katon looked very alarming in his wig, 
with his shoe-buckles and great red face. 

"What a fairy tale it was ! There was little 
Ella sitting in this lovely chariot, galloping 
down the Brompton Koad, with all the little 
boys cheering and hurrahing ; and the little 
outriders clattering on ahead, and the old lady 
sitting bolt upright as pleased as Punch. She 
really had been going to Sydenham ; but I 
think, if she had not, she would have set off 
instantly, if she thought she would make any 
body happy by so doing. They stopped at a 
shop in the Brompton lload — the wondering 
shopwoman came out. 

"A white bonnet, if you please," said Lady 
Jane. "That will do very well. Here, child, 
put it on, and mind you don't crease the 
strings." And then away and away they went 
once more through the town, the squares, over 
the bridges.. They saw the ships and ste.amers 
coming down the silver Thames, but the car- 
riage never stopped : tlie outriders paid the 
toll and clattered on ahead. They rolled along 
i pleasant country lanes and fields, villas and 
country-houses, roadside inns, and pedestrians 
.Mnd crawling carts and carriages. At the end 
of three quarters of an hour, during which it 
seemed to Ella as if the whole gay cortege had 
been flying tiirough the air, they suddenly stop- 
])ed at last at the great gates of a Crystal Pal- 
ace blazing in the sun, and standing on a hill. 
A crowd was looking on. All sorts of grand 
people were driviug up in their carriages ; splen- 



did ladies were passing in. Two gentlemen in 
white waistcoats were dismounting from their 
horses just as Ella and Lady Jane were arriv- 
ing. They rushed up to the cai'riage door, and 
helped them to the ground. 

"And pray, sir, who are you?" said Lady 
Jane, as soon as she was safely deposited on her 
two little flat feet with the funny old-fiishioned 
shoes. 

The young man colored up and bowed. 
"You don't remember me. Lady Jane," he 
said. " Charles Ilicbardson. I have had the 
honor of meeting you at Ash Place, and at 
Cliffe, my imclc's house. This is my friend 
Mr. Prettyman." 

"This is Mr. Richardson, my dear Ella, and 
that is Mr. Prettyman. Tell them to come 
back in a couple of hours " (to the page), " and 
desire Raton to see that the horses have a feed. 
Now then — yes — give her your arm, and you 
are going to take me? — very well," to the other 
white waistcoat ; and so they went into the 
Palace. 

What are young princes like nowadays? 
Do they wear diamond aigrettes, swords at 
their sides, top-boots, and little short cloaks 
over one shoulder ? The only approach to ro- 
mance that I can see, is the flower in their but- 
ton-hole, and the nice little mustaches and curly 
beards in which they delight. But all the same 
besides the flower in the button, there is also, I 
tliink, a possible flower of sentiment still grow- 
ing in the soft hearts of princes in these days, 
as in the old days long, long ago, 

Charles Richardson was a short ugly little 
man, very gentlemanlike, and well dressed. 
He was the next heir to a baronetcy ; he had 
a pale face and a snub nose, and such a fine 
estate in prospect — Cliffe Court its name was — 
that I do not wonder at Miss Lisette's admira- 
tion for him. As for Ella, she thought how 
kind he had been on the stairs that morning ; 
she thought what a bright genial smile he had. 
How charming he looked, she said to herself; 
no, never, never had she dreamt of any one so 
nice. She was quite — more than satisfied ; no 
prince in romance would have seemed to her 
what this one was, there actually walking beside 
her. As for Richardson himself, it was a case 
of love at first sight. He had seen many thou- 
sand young ladies in the last few years, but not 
one of them to compare with this sweet-faced, 
ingenuous, tender, bright little cieature. He 
offered her his arm, and led her along. 

Ella observed that he said a few words to his 
friend ; she little guessed their purport. " You 
go first," he whispered, " and, if you see the 
Ashfords, get out of the way. I should have to 
walk with those girls, and my heart is here 

transfixed forever." "Where have I 

seen you before ?" he went on, talking to Ella, 
as they roamed through the beautiful courts 
and gardens, among fountains and flowers, and 
rare objects of art. "Forgive me for asking I 

you, but I must have met you somewhere long ' 

ago, and have never forgotten you. I am 



CIKDERELLA. 



153 



haunted by your face." Ella was too much 
ashamed to tell him where and how it was they 
liad met that very morning. She remembered 
him perfectly, but she thought he would rush 
away and leave her, if she told him that the 
untidy little scrub upon the stairs had been her- 
self. And slie was so happy ; music ])laying, I 
flowers blooming, the great wonderful fairy Fal- ! 
ace flashing overhead ; the kind, clever, delight- 1 
ful young man to escort her ; the gay company, 
tlie glitter, the perfume, the statues, the inter- 
esting figures of Indians, the dear, dear, kind I 
Lady Jane to look "to for sympathy and for 
good-humored little nods of encouragement. 
She had never been so happy ; she had never i 
known what a wonder the Palace might be. i 
Her heart was so full. It was all so lovely, so | 
inconceivably beautiful and delightful, that she ' 
was nearly tipsy with delight ; her head turned 
for an instant, and she clung to young Rich- 
ard^n's protecting arm. 

"Are you faint? are you ill?" he said anx- 
iously. 

"Oh no!" said Ella, '"it's only that every 
thing is so beautiful ; it is almost more than I 
can bear. I — I am not often so happy; oh, it 
is so charming ! I do not think any thing could 
be so delightful in all the world." She look- 
ed herself so charming and unconscious as she 
spoke, looking up with her beautiful face out 
of her white bonnet, that the young fellow felt 
as if he must propose to her, then and there, off- 
hand on the very spot ; and at the instant he 
looked up passionately — oh, horror! — he caught 
sight of the Ashfords, mother, daughters, Ma- 
dame de Bricabrac, all in a row, coming right 
down upon them. 

"Prettyman, this way, to the riglit," cried 
little Richardson, desperately; and Pretty-man, 
who was a good-natured fellow, said: "This 
way, please, Lady Jane ; tliere'ssome people wc 
want to avoid over there." 

. * * * * * * 

"I'm sure it was," Lisette said. "I knew 
the color of his waistcoat. Who could he have 
been walking with, I wonder?" 

"Some lady of rank, evidently," said Julia. 
" I think they went up into the gallery in search 
of us." 

" Let us go into the gallery, dears," said Mi's. 
Ashford, and away they trudged. 

* * * * * * 

The young men and their companions had 
gone into the Tropics, and meanwhile were sit- 
ting under a spreading palm-tree, eating pink 
ices; while the music played and played more 
delightfully, and all the air was full of flowers 
and waltzes, of delight, of sentiment. To young 
Richardson the whole Palace was Ella in every 
thing, in every sound and flower and fountain ; 
to Ella young Richardson seemed an enormous 
giant, and his kind little twinkling eyes were 
shining all round her. 

Poor dear! she was so little used to being 
happy, her happiness almost overpowered her. 

"Are you going to the ball at Guildhall to- 



morrow?" Mr. Richardson was saying to his 
unknown princess. "How shall I ever meet 
you again? Will you not tell me your name? 
but—" 

" I wonder what o'clock it is, and where your 
mother can be, Ella," said Lady Jane ; "it's 
very odd we have not met." 

****** 

" I can't imagine where they can have hid 
themselves," said Julia, very crossh', from the 
gallery overhead. 

"I'm so tired, and I'm ready to drop," said 
Miss Lisette. 

" Oh, let us sit," groaned Madame de Brica- 
brac. ' ' I can walk no more ; what does it matter 
if we do not find your friends ?" 

"If we take our places at the door," said 
Lisette, " we shall be sure to catch them as they 
pass." 

"Perhaps I may be able to go to the ball," 
said the princess, doubtfully. " I — I don't 
know." Lady Jane made believe not to be 
listening. The voices in the gallery passed on. 
Lady Jane, having finished her ice?, pidled out 
her little watch, and gave a scream of terror. 
"Heavens! my time is up," she said. "Raton 
will frighten me out of my wits, driving home. 
Come, child, come — come — come. Make haste 
— thank these gentlemen for their escort," and 
she went skurrying along, a funny little active 
figure, followed by the breathless young people. 
They got to the door at last, where Raton was 
waiting, looking very ferocious. " Oh, good- 
bye," said Ella. "Thank you so much," as 
Richardson helped her into the chariot. 

"And you will not forget me?" he said, in 
a low voice. " I shall not need any name to re- 
member you by." 

" My name is Ella," she answered, blushing, 
and driving off; and tlien Ella flung her arms 
round Lady Jane, and began to cry again, and 
said : " Oh, I have been so happy ! so happy ! 
How good, good of you to make me so happy ! 
Oh, thank you, dear Lady Jane!" 

The others came back an hour after them, 
looking extremely cross, and were much sur- 
prised to find Lady Jane in the drawing-room. 
"I am not going back till Wednesday," said 
the old lady. "I've several things to do in 

town Well, have you had a pleasant 

day ?" 

" Not at all, ".said Mrs. Ashford, plaintively. 
" The colonel deserted us ; we didn't find our 
young men till just as we were coming away. 
We are all very tired, and want some supper — 
some of your delicious fruit, Lady Jane." 

" Oh dear, how tired I am !" said Julia. 

"Poor Richardson was in very bad spirits," 
said Lisette. 

" What a place it is for losing one another !" 
said old Lady Jane. "I took Ella there this 
afternoon, and though I looked about I couldn't 
see you any where." 

"J^//a.'" cried the other girls, astonished ; 
"was she there?" .... But thcv were too 



154 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



much afraid of Lady Jane to object more open- 

That evening, after the others left the room, 
as Ella was pouring out the tea, she summoned 
up courage to ask whether she might go the 
ball at Guildhall, with the others, next evening. 
"Fray, pray, please take me," she implored. 
Mrs. Ashford looked up amazed at her audac- 
ity. 

Foor little Ella ! refused, scorned, snubbed, 
wounded, pained, and disappointed. She finish- 
ed pouring out tlie tea in silence, while a few 
bitter scalding tears dropped from her eyes into 
the teacups. Colonel Ashford drank some of 
them, and asked for more sugar to put into his 
cup. 

"There, never mind," he said, kindly. He 
felt vexed with his wife, and sorry for the cliild ; 
but he was, as usual, too weak to interfere. 
" You know you are too young to go into the 
world, Ella. When your sisters are married, 
then your turn will come." 

Alas ! would it ever come ? The day's de- 
light had given her a longing for more ; and 
now she fek the beautiful glittering vision was \ 
only a vision, and over already : the cloud- 
capped towers, the gorgeous palace; and the i 
charming prince himself — was he a vision too? , 
Ah ! it was too sad to think of. Presently Li- 
sctte and Julia came back : they had been up ' 
stairs to see about their dresses. 

"I shall wear my bird-of-paradise, and my i 
yellow tarlatane," said Lisettc ; " gold and pur- 
ple is such a lovely contrast." 

"Gobert has sent me a lovely thing," said 
Julia ; "tri-color flounces all the way up — she 
has so much taste." 

Good old Lady Jane asked her maid next 
morning if any dress was being got ready for 
Miss Ella. Hearing that she was not going, 
and that no preparations were being made, she 
dispatched Batter on a secret mission, and or- j 
dered her carriage at nine o'clock that evening. 
She went out herself soon after breakfast in a 
hired brougham, dispensing with the outriders 
for once. Ella was hard at work all day for | 
her sisters ; her little fingers quilled, fluted, 
frilled, pleated, pinned, tacked the trimmings on 
their dresses more dexterously than any dress- 
maker or maid-servant could do. She looked so 
pretty, so kind, and so tired, so wistful, as she 
came to help them to dress, that Lisette was 
quite touched, and said : |' Well, Ella, I 
shouldn't wonder if, after I am snapped up, you ! 
were to get hold of a husband some day. I dare 
say some people might think you nice-looking." \ 

"Oh, do you think so really, Lisette?'"* s.iid 
Ella, quite pleased ; and then faltering, " Do 
you think Shall you see Mr. Richard- 
son ?" [ 

" Of course I shall," said Lisette. " He was j 
talking great nonsense yesterday after we found 
him ; saying that he had met with perfection 
at last — very devoted altogether ; scarcely spoke 
to me at all ; but that is the greatest proof of j 
devotion, vou know. I know what he meant 



very well. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he 
was to propose to-night. I don't know whether 
I shall have him. I'm always afraid of being 
thrown away," said Lisette looking over her 
shoulder at her train. 

Ella longed to send a message, a greeting of 
some sort, to Lisette's adorer. Oh, how she 
envied her ! what would she not have given to 
be going too ? . . . . 

"What! are not you dressing, child?" said 
Lady Jane, coming into the room. " Are they 
again obliged to call for Madame de Bricabrac? 
I had looked up a pair of "shoe-buckles for you 
in case you went ; but keep them all the same, 
the}' onl}' want a little rubbing up." 

" Oh, thank you ; how pretty they are ; how 
kind you are to me!" said Ella, sadly. "I — 
I — am not going." And she gulped down a 
great sob. 

It was just dreadful not to go ; the poor child 
had had a great draught of delight the day be- 
fore, and she was aching and sickening for more, 
and longing with a passion of longing which is 
only known to very young people — she looked 
quite worn and pale, though she was struggling 
with her tears. 

" Rub up your shoe-buckles, that will dis- 
tract you," said the old lady, kindly. " They 
are worth a great deal of money, though they 
are only paste ; and if you peep in my room you 
will find a little pair of slippers to wear them 
with. I hope they will fit. I could hardly get 
any small enough for you." They were the 
loveliest little white satin slippers, with satin 
heels, all embroidered with glass beads; but, 
small as tlicy were, they were a little loose, 
only Ella took care not to say so, as she tried 
them on. 

We all know what is coming, though little 
Ella had no idea of it. The ball was at Guild- 
hall, one of the grandest and gayest that ever 
was given in the city of London. It was in 
honor of the beautiful young Princess, who had 
just landed on our shores. Princes, ambassa- 
dors, nobles, stars, orders and garters, and dec- 
orations, were to be present ; all the grandest, 
gayest, richest, liappiest people in the country, 
all the most beautiful ladies and jewels and 
flowers, were to be there to do liomage to the 
peerless young bride. The Ashfords had no 
sooner started, than Lady Jane, who had been 
very mysterious all day, and never told any one 
that she had been to the city to procure two 
enormous golden tickets which were up in her 
bedroom, now came, smiling very benevolently, 
into the drawing-room. Little Ella was stand- 
ing out in the balcony with her pale face, and all 
her hair tumbling down lier back. She had 
been too busy to put it up, and now she was only 
thinking of the ball, and picturing the dear lit- 
tle ugly disappointed foce of Prince Richardson, 
when he should look about every where for her 
in vain — while she was standing hopelessly gaz- 
ing after the receding carriage. 

" Well, my dear, have you rubbed up the 
slioe-buckles ? That is riglit," said the old lady. 



CINDERELLA. 



" Now come quick into my room and see some 
of my conjuring." 

Conjuring ! It was the most beautiful white 
net dress, frothed and frothed up to the waist, 
and looped up with long grasses. The conjur- 
ing was her own dear old pearl necklace with 
the diamond clasp, and a diamond star for her 
hair. It was a bunch of grasses and delicate 
white azalias for a head-dress, and over all the 
fioth a great veil of flowing white net. The 
child opened her violet eyes, gasped, screamed, 
and began dancing about the room like a mad 
thing, jumping, bounding, clapping her hands, 
all so softly and gayly, and yet so lightly, in 
such an ecstasy of delight, that Lady Jane felt 
she was more than rewarded. 

"Ah! there she is at last!" cried Mr. Rich- 
ardson, who was turning carefully round and 
round with the energetic Lisette. 

" What do you mean?" said Lisette. 

Can you fancy her amazement when she look- 
ed round and saw Ella appearing in her snow 
and sunlight dress, looking so beautiful that 
every body turned to wonder at her, and to ad- 
mire ? As for Ella, she saw no one, notiiing ; 
she was looking up and down, and right and 
left, for the kind little pale plain face which she 
wanted. 

" Excuse me one minute, Miss Lisette," said 
Mr. Richardson, leaving poor Lisette planted 
in the middle of tlie room, and rushing forward. 

" Ai'e you engaged," Ella heard a breathless 
voice saying in her ear, " for the next three, 
six, twenty dances ? I am so delighted you 
have come ! I thought you were never coming." 

Julia had no partner at all, and was stand- 
ing close by the entrance with her mother. 
They- were both astounded at the apparition. 
Mrs. Ashford came forward to make sure that 
her eyes were not deceiving her. Could it be? 
yes — no — yes, it was Ella ! She flicked her fan 
indignantly into an alderman's eye, and looked 
so fierce that the child began to tremble. 

" Please forgive me, mamma," said Ella, 
piteously. 

"Forgive you! never," said Mrs. Ashford, 
indignant. " What does all this mean, pray ?" 
she continued. "Lady Jane, I really must — " 
and then she stopped, partly because she was so 
angry she could scarcely speak, and partly be- 
cause she could not afford to quarrel with Lady 
Jane until the season was over. 

"You really 7;h/s; forgive me, dear Lydia," 
said Lady Jane. "She wanted to come so 
much, I could not resist bringing her." 

Weber's inspiriting Last Waltz was being 
played ; the people and music went waving to 
and fro like the waves of the sea, sudden sharp 
notes of exceeding sweetness sounded, and at 
the sound the figures all swayed in harmony. 
The feet kept unseen measure to the music ; 
the harmonious rhythm thrilled and controlled 
them all. The music was like an enchantment, 
which kept them moving and swaying in circles 
and in delightful subjection. Lassitude, sad- 



ness, disappointment, Ella's alarm, all melteU 
away for the time ; pulses beat, and the dancers 
see-sawed to the measure. 

All that evening young Richardson danced 
with Ella and with no one else : they scarcely 
knew how the time went. It was a fairy world : 
they were flying and swimming in melody — the 
fairy hours went by to music, in light, in de- 
lightful companionship. Ella did not care for 
Mrs. Ashford's darkening looks, for any thing 
that might happen : she was so happy in the 
moment, she almost forgot to look for Lady 
Jane's sympathetic glance. 

" You must meet me in the ladies' cloak- 
room punctually at half past eleven," her pa- 
troness had whispered to her. " I can not 
keep Raton, with his bad cough, out after twelve 
o'clock. Mind you are punctual, for I have 
promised not to keep him waiting." 

"Yes, yes, dear Lady Jane," said Ella, and 
away she danced again to the music. And time 
went on, and Julia had no partners ; and Colo- 
nel Ashford came up to his wife, saying — "I'm 
so glad you arranged for Ella too," he said. 
"How nice she is looking ! What is the mat- 
ter with Julia ; why don't she dance ?" Tum- 
ty, tunity, tumty, went the instruments. And 
meanwhile Mr. Richardson was saying, " Your 
dancing puts me in mind of a fairy I once saw 
in a field at Cliffe long ago. Nobody would 
ever believe me, but I did see one." 

"A fairy — what was she like?" asked Ella. 

" She was very like you," said Mr. Richard- 
son, laughing. "I do believe it was you, and 
tliat was the time when I saw you before." 

" No, it was not," said Ella, blushing, and 
feeling she ought to confess. ' ' I will tell you," 
she said, " if you will promise to dance one more 
dance with me, after you know. — Only one." 

" Then you, too, remember," he cried, eager- 
ly. "One more dance? — twenty — forever and 
ever. Ah, you must know, you must guess, the 
feeling in my heart " 

"Listen first," said Ella, trembling very 
much and waltzing on very slow]}'. "It was 
only the other day — " The clock struck three 
quarters. 

"Ella, I am going," said Lady Jane, tap- 
ping her on the shoulder. " Come along, my 
dear — " 

" One woi'd !" cried Richardson, eagerly. 

"You can stay witii your mother if you 
like," the old lady went on, preoccupied — she 
was thinking of her coachman's ire — " but I 
advise you to come with me." 

" Oh, pray, pray stay !" said young Richard- 
son ; " where is your mother ? Let me go and 
ask her ?" 

"You had better go yourself, Ella," said old 
Lady Jane. " Will you give me your arm to 
the door, ]\Ir. Richardson ?" 

Ella went up to Mrs. Asliford — she was bold 
with happiness to-night — and made her request. 
"Stay with me? certainly not, it is quite out 
of the question. You do me great honor," 
said the lady, laughing sarcastically. "Lady 



156 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



Jane brought you, Lady Jane must take you 
back," said the stepmother. " Follow your 
chnperone, if you please, I have no room for 
you in my brougham. Go directly, miss !" 
said Mrs. Ashford, so savagely that the poor 
child was quite frightened, and set off running 
after the other two. She would have caught 
them up, but at that instant Lisette — who had 
at last secured a partner — came waltzing up in 
sucli a violent, angry way, that she bumped 
right up against the little flying maiden and 
nearly knocked her down. Ella gave a low cry 
of pain, they had trodden on her foot roughly 
— the}' had wounded her ; her little satin slip- 
per had come oft". Poor Ella stooped and tried 
to pull at the slipper, but other couples came 
surging up, and she was alone, and frightened, 
and obliged to shuffle a little way out of the 
crowd before she could get it on. The poor 
little frightened thing thought she never should 
get tin'ough the crowd. She made the best of 
her way to tlie cloak-room : it seemed to her as 
if she had been hours getting there. At last 
she reached it, only to see, to her dismay, as she 
went in at one door, the other two going out of 
another a long way off! She called, but they 
did not hear her, and at the same moment St. 
Paul's great clock began slowly to strike twelve. 
" My cloak, my cloak, any thing, please," she 
cried in great agitation and anxiety ; and a stu- 
pid, bewildered maid hastily threw a shabby 
old shawl over her shoulders — it belonged to 
some assistant in the place. Little Ella, more 
and more frightened, pulled it up as she hurried 
along the blocked passages and corridors all 
lined with red and thronged with peoj)le. They 
all stared at her in surprise as she flew along. 
Presently her net tunic caught in the door-way 
and tore into a long ragged shi'ed which trailed 
after her. In her agitation her comb fell out of 
her hair — she looked all scared and frightened 
• — nobody would have recognized the beautiful 
triumphal princess of half an hour before. She 
heard the link -men calling, " Peppercorne's 
carriage stops the way '."and she hurried faster 
and faster down the endless passages and steps, 
and at last, just as she got to the door-way — 
oh, horror! she saw the carriage and outriders 
going gleaming off in the moonlight while ev- 
ery thing else looked black, dark, and terrible. 
"Stop, stop, please stop!" cried little Ella, 
rushing out into the street through the amazed 
footmen and link-men. " Stop ! stop !" she 
cried, flying past Richardson himself, who could 
hardly believe his eyes. Raton only whipped 
his horses, and Ella saw them disappearing into 
gloom in the distance in a sort of agony of de- 
spair. She was excited beyond measure, and 
exaggerated all her feelings. What was to be 
done ? Go back ? — that was impossible ; walk 
home ? — she did not know her way. Was it 
fancy ? — was not somebody following her ? She 
felt quite desperate in the moonlight and dark- 



ness. At that instant it seemed to her like a 
fairy chariot coming to her rescue, when a cab- 
man, who was slowly passing, stopped and said, 
" Cab, mum ?" 

" Yes ! Oh yes ! To Onslow Square," cried 
Ella, jumping in and shutting the door in de- 
light and relief. She drove off just as the be- 
wildered little Richardson, who had followed 
her, reached the spot. He came up in time 
only to see the cab drive off, and to pick up 
something which was lying shining on the pave- 
ment. It was one of the diamond buckles 
which had fallen from her shoe as she jumped 
in. This little diamond buckle might perhaps 
have led to her identification if young Richard- 
son had not taken the precaution of ascertaining 
from old Lady Jane Ella's name and address. 

lie sent a servant next morning with a little 
parcel and a note to inquire wiiether one of the 
ladies had lost what was inclosed, and whether 
Colonel Ashford would see him at one o'clock on 
business. 

"Dear me, what a pretty little buckle !" 
said Lisette, trying it on her large flat foot. 
" It looks very nice, don't it, Julia ? I think I 
guess — don't you ? — what he is coming for. I 
shall say 'No.'" 

"It's too small for you. It would do better 
for me," said Julia, contemplating her own 
long slipper, embellished with the diamonds. 
" It is not ours. We must send it back, I sup- 
pose." 

"A shoe -buckle?" said Ella, coming in 
from the kitchen, where she had been sujierin- 
tending preserves in her little brown frock. 
"Let me see it. Oh, how glad I am ! it is 
mine. Look here!" and she pulled the fellow 
out of her pocket. " Lady Jane gave them to 
me." 

And so the prince arrived before luncheon, 
and was closeted with Colonel Ashford, who 
gladly gave his consent to what he wanted. 
And when Mrs. Ashford began to explain things 
to him, as was her way, he did not listen to a 
single word she said. He was so absorbed 
wondering when Ella was coming into the room. 
He thought once he heard a little rustle on the 
stairs outside, and he jumped up and rushed to 
the door. It was Ella, sure enough, in her 
shabby little gown. Then he knew where and 
when he had seen her before. 

" Ella, why did yon run away from me last 
night?" he said. "You see I have followed 
you, after all." 

Thej were so good, so happy, so devoted to 
one another, that even Lisette and Julia relent- 
ed. Dear little couple ; good luck go witli 
them, happiness, content, and plenty. There 
was something quite touching in their youth, 
tenderness, and simplicity ; and as they drove 
off in their carriage for the honeymoon. Lady 
Jane flung the very identical satin slipper after 
them wliich Ella should have lost at the ball. 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



Fairy times, gifts, music, and dances, are 
said to be over, or, as it has been said, they come 
to 'us so disguised and made familiar by habit 
that they do not seem to us strange. H. and I, 
on either side of the hearth, these long past win- 
ter evenings could sit without fear of fiery dwarfs 
skipping out of the ashes, of black puddings 
coming down the chimney to molest us. The 
clock ticked, the wiadow-pane rattled. It was 
only the wind. The hearth-brush remained mo- 
tionless on its hook. Pussy dozingon thehearth, 
with her claws quietly opening to the warmth 
of the blaze, purred on, and never once startled 
us out of our usual placidity by addressing us 
in human tones. The children sleeping peace- 
fidly up stairs were not suddenly whisked away 
and changelings deposited in their cribs. If 
H. or I opened our mouths pearls and diamonds 
did not drop out of them, but neither did frogs 
and tadpoles fall from between our lips. The 
looking-glass tranquilly reflecting the comforta- 
ble little sitting-room, and the stiff ends of H.'s 
cap -ribbons, spared us visions of wreathing 
clouds parting to reveal distant scenes of hor- 
ror and treachery. Poor 11. ! I am not sure 
but that she would have gladly looked in a mir- 
ror in which she could have sometimes seen the 
images of those she loved ; but our chimney- 
glass, with its gilt moulding and bright polish- 
ed surface, reflects only such homely scenes as 
two old women at work by the fire, some little 
Indian children at play upon the rug, the door 
opening and Susan bringing in the tea-things. 
As for, wishing-clotlis and little boiling-pots, 
and such like, we have discovered that instead 
of rubbing lamps, or spreading magic table-cloths 
upon the floor, we have but to ring an invisible 
bell (which is even less trouble), and a smiling 
genius in a white cap and apron brings in any 
thing M-e happen to fancy. When the clock 
strikes twelve, H. puts up her work and lights 
her candle ; she has not yet been transformed 
into a beautiful princess all twinkling with jew- 
els, neither does a scullion ever stand before me 
in rags ; she does not murmur farewell forever 
and melt through the key-hole, but "Good- 
night," as she closes the door. One night at 
twelve o'clock, just after she had left me, there 
was indeed a loud orthodox ring at the bell, 
which started us both a little; H. came run- 
ning down again without her cap, Susan ap- 
pea.ed in great alarm from the kitchen. "It 



is the back-door bell, ma'am," said the girl, 
who had been sitting up over her new Sunday 
gown, but who was too frightened to see who 
was ringing. 

I may as well explain that our little house is 
in a street, but that our back windows have the 
advantage of overlooking the grounds of the 
villa belonging to our good neighbor and friend 
Mr. Griffiths in Castle Gardens, and that a door 
opens out of our little back garden into his big 
one, of which we are allowed to keep the key. 
This door had been a postern-gate once upon a 
time, for a bit of the old wall of the park is still 
standing, against which our succeeding bricks 
have been piled. It was a fortunate chance for 
us when our old ivy-tree died and we found the 
quaint little door-way behind it. Old Mr. Grif- 
fiths was alive tlien, and when I told him of my 
discovery, he good-naturedly cleared the way on 
his side, and so the oak turned once more upon 
its rusty hinges to let the children pass through, 
and the nurse-maid, instead of pages and secret 
emissaries and men-at-arms ; and about three 
times a year young Mr. Griffiths stoops under 
the arch on his way to call upon us. I say 
young Mr. Griffiths, but I suppose he is over 
thirty now, for it is more than ten years since 
his father died. 

When I opened the door, in a burst of wind 
and wet, I found that it was Guy Griffiths who 
stood outside bare-headed in tho rain, ringing 
the bell that winter night. "Are you up?" he 
said. " For Heaven's sake come to my mother, 
she's fainted ; her maid is away ; the doctor 
doesn't come. I thought you might know what 
to do." And then he led the way through the 
dark garden, hurrying along before me. 

Poor lady, when I saw her I knew that it was 
no fainting-fit, but a paralytic stroke, from which 
she might perhaps recover in time ; I could not 
tell. For the present tliere was little to be 
done : the maids were young and frightened ; 
poor Guy wanted some word of sympathy and 
encouragement. So far I was able to be of use. 
We got her to bed and took ofl^her finery— she 
had been out at a dinner-party, and had been 
stricken on her return home — Guy had discov- 
ered her speechless in the library. The poor 
fellow, frightened and overcome, waited about, 
trying to be of help, but he was so nervous that 
he tumbled over us all, and knocked over the 
chairs aild bottles in his anxiety, and was of 
worse than no use. His kind old shaggy face 
looked pale, and his brown eyes rinjed with 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS, 



anxiousness. I was touched hy the young fel- 
low's concern, for Mrs. Griffiths had not been a 
tender mother to him. How she had snapped 
and laughed at him, and frightened him, with 
her quick sarcastic tongue and hard, unmother- 
like ways ! I wondered if she thought of this 
as she lay there cold, rigid, watching us with 
glassy, senseless eyes. 

The payments and debts and returns of af- 
fection are at all times hard to reckon. Some 
people pay a whole treasury of love in return 
for a stone, others deal out their affection at 
interest, others again take every thing, to the 
uttermost farthing, and cast it into the ditch 
and go their way and leave their benefactor pen- 
niless and a beggar. Guy liimself, hard-headed 
as he was, and keen over his ledgers in Moor- 
gate Street, could not have calculated such sums 
as these. All that she had had to give, all the 
best part of her shallow store, poor Julia Grif- 
fiths had paid to her husband, who did not love 
her : to her second son, whose whole life was a 
soi'row to his parents. When he died she could 
never forgive poor Guy for living still, for be- 
ing his father's friend and right hand, and sole 
successor. She had been a real mother to Hugh, 
who was gone ; to Guy, who was alive still and 
patiently waiting to do her bidding, she had 
shown herself only a stepdame ; and yet I am 
sure no life-devoted parent could have been more 
anxiously watched and tended by her son. Per- 
haps — how shall I say what I mean ? — if he had 
loved her more and been more entirely one with 
her now, his dismay would have been less, his 
power greater to bear her pain, to look on at 
her struggling agony of impotence. Even pain 
does not come between the love of people who 
really love. 

The doctor came and went, leaving some com- 
fort behind him. Guy sat up all that night, 
burning logs on the fire in the dressing-room, 
out of the bedroom in wliich Mrs. Griffiths was 
lying. Every now and then I went in to him, 
and found him sitting over the hearth shaking 
his great shaggy head, as he had a way of doing, 
and biting his fingers, and muttering, "Poor 
soul, poor mother." Sometimes he would come 
in creaking on tiptoe ; but his presence seemed 
to agitate the poor woman, and I was obliged 
to motion him back again. Once when I went 
in and sat down for a few minutes in an arm- 
chair beside him, he suddenly began to tell me 
that there had been trouble between them that 
morning. "It made it very hard to bear," he 
said. I asked him what the trouble had been. 
"I told her I thought I should like to marry," 
Guy confessed with a rueful face. (Even then 
I could hardly help smiling.) " Selfish beast 
that I am. I upset her, poor soul. I behaved 
like a brute." His distress was so great that it 
was almost impossible to console him, and it 
was in vain to assure him that the attack had 
been produced by physical causes. "Do j-ou 
want to marry any one in particular?" I asked 
at last, to divert his thoughts, if I could, from 
the present. "No," said he; "at least — of 



course she is out of the question — only I thought 
perhaps some day I should have liked to have a 
^vife and children and a home of my own. Why, 
the counting-house is not so dreary as this place 
sometimes seems to me." 'And then, though it 
was indeed no time for love-confidences, I could 
not help asking him who it was that was out of 
the question. 

Guy Grifl3ths shrugged his great round shoul- 
ders impatiently, and gave something between a 
groan and sigh and smile (dark and sulky as he 
looked at times, a smile brightened up his grim 
face very pleasantly). 

" She don't even know my name," he said. 
"I saw her one night at the play, and then in a 
lane in the country a little time after. I fomid 
out who she was. She's a daughter of old Barly 
the stockbroker. Belinda they call her — Miss 
Belinda. It's rather a silly name, isn't it?" 
(This, of course, I politely denied.) " I'm sure 
I don't know what there is about her," he went 
on in a gentle voice; "all the fellows down 
there were head over ears in love with her. I 
asked — in fact I went down to Farmborough in 
hopes of meeting her again. I never saw such 
a sweet young creature — never. I never spoke 
to her in my life." ' ' But you know her father ?" 
lasked. "OldBarly?— Yes, "said Gu}-. "His 
wife was my father's' cousin, and he and I are 
each other's trustees for some money which was 
divided between me and Mrs. Barly. My par- 
ents never kept up with them much, but I was 
named trustee in my father's place when he died. 
I didn't like to refuse. I had never seen Belinda 
then. Do j'ou like sweet sleepy eyes thafvvake 
up now and then ? Was that my mother call- 
ing ?" For a minute he had forgotten the dreary 
present. It all came rushing back again. The 
bed creaked, the patient had moved a little on 
her pillow, and there was a gleam of some in- 
telligence in her jjinched face. The clock struck 
four in quick tinkling tones ; the rain seemed 
to have ceased, and the clouds to be parting; 
the rooms turned suddenly chill, though the fires 
were burning. 

When I went home, about five o'clock, all the 
stars had come out and were shooting brilliantly 
overhead. The garden seemed full of a sudden 
[ freshness and of secret life stirring in the dark- 
[ ness; the sick woman's light was burning faint- 
I ly, and in my own window the little bright lamp 
' was flickering which H.'s kind fingers had trim- 
med and put there ready for me when I should 
return. When we reached the little gate, Guy 
; opened it and let me pass under some dripping 
■ green creeper which had been blown loose from 
\ the wall. He took my old hand in both his big 
ones, and began to say something that ended in 
a sort of inarticulate sound as he turned away 
and trudged back to his post again. I thought 
of the many meetings and partings at this little 
postern gate, and last words and protestations. 
Some may have been more sentimental perhaps 
than this one, but Guy's grunt of gratitude was 
more affecting to me than many a long string 
of words. I felt very sorry for him, poor old 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



159 



fellow, as I barred the door and climbed up stairs 
to my room. He sat up watching till the morn- 
ing. But I was tired, and soon went to sleep. 



•II. 

Some people do ver}' well for a time. Chances 
are propitious, the way lies straiglit before them 
up a gentle inclined plane, with ajjleasant pros- 
pect on either side. They go rolling straight 
on, they don't exactly know how, and take it 
for granted that it is their own prudence and 
pood driving and deserts which have brought 
them prosperously so far upon their journey. 
And then one day they come to a turnpike, 
and Destiny pops out of its little box and de- 
mands a toll, or Prudence trips, or Good Sense 
shies at a scarecrow put up by the wayside — 
or nobody knows why, but the whole machine 
breaks down on the road and can't be set go- 
ing again. And then other vehicles go past 
it, hand-trucks, perambulators, cabs, omnibus- 
es, and great prosperous barouches, and the 
people who were sitting in the broken-down 
equipage get out and walk away on foot. 

On that celebrated and melancholy Black 
Monday of which we have all heard, poor John 
Barly and his thi'ee daughters came down the 
carpeted steps of their comfortable sociable for 
the last time, and disappeared at the wicket of 
a little suburban cottage — disappeared out of 
the prosperous, pompous, highly respectable cir- 
cle in which they had gyrated, dragged about 
by two fat bay horses, in the greatest decorum 
and respectability; dining out, receiving their 
friends, returning tlieir civilities. Miss Barlys 
had left large cards with their names engraved 
npon them, in return for other large cards upon 
which were inscribed equally respectable names, 
and the addresses of other equally commodious 
family mansions. A mansion — so the house- 
agents tell us — is a house like another with the 
addition of a back staircase. The Barlys and 
all their friends had back staircases to their 
houses and to their daily life as well. They 
only wished to contemiilate the broad, swept, 
carpeted drawing-room flights. Indeed to Anna 
and Fanny Barly this making the best of things, 
card-leaving and visiting, seemed a business of 
vital importance. The youngest of the girls, 
who had been christened by the pretty silly 
name of Belinda, had only lately come home 
from school, and did not value these sjdendors 
and proprieties so highly as her sisters did. 
She had no great love for the life they led. 
Sometimes, looking over the balusters of their 
great house in Capulet Square, she had yawned 
out loud from very weariness, and then she 
would hear the sound echoing all the way up 
to the skylight, and reverberating down from 
baluster to baluster. If she went into the 
drawing-room, instead of the yawning echoes 
the shrill voices of Anna and of Fanny were 
vibrating monotonously as they complimented 
Lady Ogden upon her new barouche, until Be- 



linda could bear it no longer, and would jump 
up and run away to her bedroom to escape it 
all. She had a handsome bedroom, draped in 
green damask, becarpeted, four-posted, with an 
enormous mahogany wardrobe of which poor 
Belle was dreadfully afraid, for the doors would 
fly open of tlieir own accord in the dead of 
night, revealing dark abysses and depths un- 
known, with black ghosts hovering suspended 
or motionless and biding their time. There 
were other horrors ; shrouds waving in the 
blackness, feet stirring, and low creakings of 
garroters, which she did not dare to. dwell upon 
as she hastily locked the doors and pushed the 
writing-table against them. 

It must therefore be confessed, that to Be- 
linda the days had been long and oppressive 
sometimes in this handsomely appointed Ty- 
burncan palace. Anna, the eldest sister, was 
queen-regnant ; she had both ability and in- 
clination to take the lead. She was short, 
broad, and dignified, and some years older than 
either of her sisters. Her father respected her 
business-like mind, admired her ambition, re- 
gretted sometimes secretly that she had never 
been able to make up her mind to accept any 
of the eligible young junior partners, the doc- 
tor, the curate, who had severally proposed to 
her. But then of course, as Anna often said, 
they could not possibly have got on without her 
at home. She had been in no hurry to leave 
the comfortable kingdom where she reigned in 
undisputed authority, ratifying the decisions of 
the ministry down stairs, appealed to by the 
butler, respectfully dreaded by both the house- 
maids. Who was there to go against her? 
Mr. Barly was in town all day and left every 
thing to her; Fanny, the second sister, was her 
fivithful ally. Fanny was sprightly, twenty- 
one, with black eyes, and a curl that was much 
admired. She was fond of fashion, flirting, and 
finery, inquisitive, talkative, feeble-minded, and 
entirely devoted to Anna. As for Belle, she 
had only come back from school the other day. 
Anna could not quite understand her at times. 
Fanny was of age and content to do as she was 
bid ; here was Belle at eighteen asserting her- 
self very strangel}'. Anna and Fanny seemed 
to pair off somehow, and Belle always had to 
hold her own without any assistance, unless, 
indeed, her father was present. He had a. great 
tenderness and affection for his youngest child, 
and the happiest hour of the day to Belinda 
was when she heard him come home and call 
for her in his cheerful quavering voice. By 
degrees it seemed to her, as she listened, that 
the cheerfulness seemed to be dying away out 
of his voice, and only the quaver remained ; 
but that may have been fancy, and because she 
had taken a childish dislike to the echoes in the 
house. 

At dinner-time, Anna used to ask her father 
how things were going in the City, and whether 
shirtings had risen any higher, and at what pre- 
mium the Tre Rosas shares were held in the 
market. Thesi? were some shares in a Cornish 



IGO 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



mine company of which Mr. Barly was a direct- 
or. Anna thought so highly of the whole con- 
cern that she had been anxious to invest a por- 
tion of her own and her sister Fanny's money 
in it. They had some small inheritance from 
their mother, of part of which they had the con- 
trol when they came of age ; the rest was in- 
vested in the Funds in Mr. Griffith's name, and 
could not be touched. Poor Cclle, being a mi- j 
nor, had to be content with sixty pounds a year 
for her pin-money, wiiich was all she could get 
for her two thousand pounds. | 

When Anna talked business, Mr. Barly used | 
to be quite dazzled by her practical clear-head- j 
cdness, her calm foresiglit, and powers of rapid 
calculation. Fanny used to prick up her ears 
and ask, shaking her curl playfully, how much | 
girls must have to be heiresses, and did Anna ' 
tliink they should ever bo heiresses ? Anna ! 
would smile and nod her head, in a calm and ^ 
chastened sort of way, at this childish impa- 
tience. "You should be very thankful, Fran- j 
ces, for all you have to look to, and for your 
excellent prospects. Emily Ogden, with all 
her fine airs, would not be sorry to be in your 
place." At which Fanny blushed up bright 
red, and Belinda jumped impatiently upon her 
chair, blinking her white eyelids impatiently 
over her clear gray eyes, as she had a way of 
doing. "I can't bear talking about money," , 
she said; "any thing is better. . . ." Then 
slie too sto])ped short and blushed. j 

"Papa,"interruptedFanny, iJayfully, "when j 
will you escort us to the pantomime again?! 
The Ogdens are all going next Tuesday, and 
you iiave been most naughty and not taken us 
any where for such a long time." I 

Mr. Barly, who rarely refused any thing any 
body asked him, pushed his chair away from ' 
the table and answered with strange impatience ! 
for him, " My dear, I have had no time lately I 
for plays and amusements of any sort. After 
working from morning to niglit for you all, I am 
tired, and want a little peace of an evening. I 
have neither spirits nor—" I 

"Dear papa," said Belinda, eagerly, "come 
up into the drawing-room and sit in the easy- 
chair, and let me play you to sleep." As she 
spoke Belinda smiled a delightful fresh, sweet, 
tender smile, like sunshine falling on a fair 
landscape. No wonder the little stock-broker | 
was fond of his youngest daughter. Frances 
was pouting, Anna frowned slightly as she lock- 
ed up the wine, and turned over in her mind ; 
whether she might not write to the Ogdens and 
ask them to let Frances join their party ; as for 
Belinda, playing Mozart to her father in the dim 
drawing-room up stairs, she was struck by the 
worn and harassed look in his face as he slept, 
snoringgently in accompaniment to her music. It 
was the last time Belle evei' played upon the old 
piano. Three or four days after, the crasli came. 
The great Tre Rosas Mining Company (Limit- 
ed) had failed, and tlie old established house of 
Barly and Co. unexpectedly stopped payment. 

If poor Mr. Barly had done it on purpose. 



j his ruin could not have been more complete and 
, ingenious. When his affairs came to be look- 
1 ed into, and his liabilities had been met, it was 
! found that an immense fortune had been mud- 
dled away, and that scarcely any thing would 
j be left but a small furnished cottage, which had 
been given for her life to an old aunt just de- 
j ceased, and which reverted to Fanny her god- 
j child, and the small sum which still remained 
in the Three per Cents, of which mention has 
been made, and which could not be touched un- 
I til Belle the youngest of three daughters, should 
I come of age. 

After two or three miserable days of confu- 
sion — during which the machine which had been 
set going with so much trouble still revolved 
once or twice with the force of its own impetus, 
the butler answering the bell, the footman 
bringing up the coals, the cook sending up the 
dinner as usual — suddenly every thing collapsed, 
and the great mass of furniture, servants, hu- 
man creatures, animals, carriages, business and 
pleasure engagements, seemed overthrown to- 
gether in a great struggling mass, panting and 
bewildered, and trying to get free from the con- 
fusion of particles that no longer belonged to 
one another. 

First, the cook packed up her things and 
some nice damask table-cloths and napkins, 
a pair of sheets, and Miss Barly's umbrella, 
which happened to be hanging in the hall ; then 
the three ladies drove off with their father to 
the cottage, Avherc it was decided they should 
go to be out of the way of any unpleasantness. 
He had no heart to begin again, and was deter- 
mined to give up the battle. Belle sat with her 
father on the back seat of the carriage, looking 
up into his haggard face a little wistfully, and 
trying to be as miserable as the others. She 
could not help it — a cottage in the country, ruin, 
roses, novelty, clean cliintzes instead of damask, 
a little room with mignonnetto, cocks crowing, 
had a wicked morbid attraction for her which 
she could not overcome. She had longed for 
such a life when she had gone down to stay 
with the Ogdens at Farmborough last month, 
and had seen several haystacks and lovely little 
thatched cottages, where she had felt she would 
have liked to spend the rest of her days; one in 
particular had taken her fancy, with dear little 
latticed windows and a pigeon-cote and two rosy 
little babies, with a kitten toddling out from the 
ivy porch ; but a great rough-looking man had 
come up in a slouched wide-awake and fright- 
ened Emily Ogden so much that she had pull- 
ed Belinda awaj- in a hurry . . . . ; but here a 
sob from Fanny brought Belle back to her place 
in the barouche. 

Anna felt she must bear up, and nerved her- 
self to the effort. Upon her the blow fell more 
heavily than upon any of the others. Indignant, 
injured, angry with her father, furious with the 
managers, the directors, the shareholders, the 
secretary, the unfortunate company, with the 
Bankruptcy Court, the Ogdens, the laws of fate, 
the world in general, with Fanny fur sobbing, 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



IGl 



and wiih Belle for looking placid, she sat blank- 
ly staring out of the window as they drove past 
the houses where they had visited, and where 
she had been entertained an honored guest; 
and now— she put the hateful thouglit away — 
bankrupt, disgraced ! Her bonnet was crushed 
in, she did not say a word, but her face looked 
quite fierce and old, and frightened Fanny into 
fresh lamentations. These hysterics had been 
first brought on by the siglit of Emily Ogden 
driving by in the new barouche. This was quite 
too much for her poor friend's fortitude. " Em- 
ily will drop us, I know she will," sobbed Fan- 
ny. " Oh Anna, will they ever come and ask 
us to their Thursday luncheon - parties any 
more?" 

" My children," said Mr. Barly, with a plac- 
id groan, pulling up the window, " we are dis- 
graced ; we can only hide our heads away from 
the world. Do not expect that any one will ever j 
come near us again." At which announcement 
Fanny went off into new tears and bewailings. 
As for the kind, bewildered, weak-headed, soft- i 
hearted little man, he had been so utterly worn 
out, harassed, worried, and wearied of late, that 
it was almost a relief to him to think that this 
was indeed tiie case. He sat holding Belle's 
hand in his, stroking and patting it, and wonder- 
ing that people so near London did not keep the 
roads in better repair. ""We must be getting 
near our new abode," said he at last almost cheer- 
fully. 

"You speak as if you were glad of our shame, 
papa," said Anna, suddenly, turning round upon 
him. 

" Oh, hush!" cried Belle, indignantly. For- 
tunately the coachman stopped at this moment 
on a spot a very long way off from Capulet 
Square; and leaning from his box, asked if it 
was that there little box across tiie conmion. 

" Oh, what a sweet little place!" cried Be- 
linda. But I.er heart ratiier sank as she told 
this dreadful story. 

Myrtle Cottage was a melancholy little tum- 
ble-down place, looking over Dumbleton Com- 
mon, which they had been crossing all this time. 
It was covered with stucco, cracked and stain- 
ed and mouldy. There was a stained - glass 
window, which was broken. The verandah 
wanted painting. From outside it was evident 
that tlie white muslin cintains were not so fresh 
as they might have been. There was a little 
garden in front, planted with durable materials. 
Even out of doors, in the gardens in the sub- 
urbs, the box-edges, the laurel-bushes, and the 
fusty old jessamines are apt to look shabby in 
time if they are never renewed. A certain 
amount of time and money might, perhaps, have 
made Myrtle Cottage into a pleasant little hab- 
itation ; but (judging from appearances) its last 
inhabitants seemed to have been in some want 
of both these commodities. Its helpless new 
occupants were not likely to liave much of ei- 
ther to spare. A little dining-room, with glass 
drop candlesticks and a rickety taljle, and a print 
of a church and a Dissenting minister on the 
L 



wall. A little drawing-room, with a great horse- 
hair sofa, a huge round table in the middle of 
the room, and more glass drop candlesticks, also 
a small work-table of glass over faded worsted 
embroidery. Fourlittlebedrooms, mousy, musty, 
snuffy, with four posts as terrific as any they had 
left behind, and a small black dungeon for a 
maid-servant. This was the little paradise 
which Belle had been picturing to Iierself all 
along the road, and at whicli she looked round 
half sighing, half dismayed. Tiieir bundles, 
baskets, blankets, were handed in, and a cart 
full of boxes had arrived. Fanny's parrot was 
shrieking at the top of its voice on the narrow 
landing. 

"What fun!" cried Belinda, sturdily, in- 
stantly setting to work to get things into some 
order, while Fanny lay exhausted upon the 
horse-hair sofa ; and Anna, in her hauglitiest 
tones, desired the coachman to drive home, and 
stood watching the receding carriage until it had 
dwindled away into the distance — coachman, 
hammer-cloth, bay horses, respectability, and 
all. When she re-entered the house, the par- 
rot was screecliing still, and Martha, the under- 
housemaid — now transformed into a sort of ex- 
tract of butler, footman, ladies' maid, and cook, 
was frying some sausages, of which the vulgar 
smell pervaded the place. 



III. 

Belle exclaimed, but it required all her 
courage and natural brightness of spirit to go on 
looking at the bright side of things, praising the 
cottage, working in the garden, giving secret 
assistance to the two bewildered maids who 
waited on the reduced little family, cheering 
her father, smiling, and putting the best face 
on things, as her sisters used to do at home. 
If it had been all front stairs in Capulet Square, 
it was all back staircase at the cottage. Rural 
roses, calm sunsets, long shadows across the 
common, are all very well ; but when puffs of 
smoke come out of the chimney and fill the 
little place ; when if the window is opened a 
rush of wind and dust — worse almost than the 
smoke — comes eddying into the room, and ca- 
reers round the four narrow walls ; when poor 
little Fanny coughs and shudders, and wraps 
her shawl more closely round her with a groan ; 
when the smell of the kitchen frying-pan per- 
fumes the house, and a mouse scampers out of 
the cupboard, and black beetles lie struggling 
in the milk-jugs, and the pump runs dry, and 
spiders crawl out of the tea-caddy, and so forth 
— then, indeed. Belle deserves some credit for 
being cheerful under difficulties. She could 
not pretend to very high spirits, but she was 
bi-isk and willing, and ready to smile at her 
father's little occasional puns and feeble at- 
tempts at jocularity. Anna, who had been so 
admirable as a general, broke down under the 
fatigue of the actual labor in the trenches which 
belonged to their new life. A great many peo- 



1G2 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



pie can order others about very brilliantly and 
satisfactorily, who fail when they have to do the 
work themselves. 

Some of the neighbors called upon them, but 
the Ogdens never appeared. Poor little Fanny 
used to take her lace-work and sit stitching and 
looping her thread at the window whicli over- ' 
looked the common, with its broad roads cross- 
ing and recrossing the phxin ; carriages came 
rolling by, people came walking, children ran 
past the windows of the little cottage, but the 
Ogdens never. Once Fanny thought she rec- 
ognized the barouche — Lady Ogden and Emily 
sitting in front, Matthew Ogdcn on the back 
seat ; surely, yes, surely it was he. But the 
carriage rolled off in a cloud of dust, and dis- 
appeared behind the wall of the neighboring 
park ; and Frances finished the loop, and pass- 
ed her needle in and out of the muslin, feeling 
as if it was through her poor little heart that she 
was piercing and sticking ; slie pulled out a 
long thread, and it seemed to her as if the sun- 
set stained it red like blood. 

In the mean while Bell's voice had been 
singing away overhead, and Fanny, going up 
stairs presently, found her, with one of the 
maids, clearing out one of the upper rooms. 
The window was open, tlie furniture was piled 
up in the middle. Belle, with her sleeves 
tucked up and her dress carefully pinned out 
of the dust, was standing on a chair, hammer in 
hand, and fixing up some dimity curtains against 
the window. Table-cloths, brooms, pails, and 
brushes were lying about, and every thing 
looked in perfect confusion. As Fanny stood 
looking and exclaiming, Anna also came to the 
door from her own room, where she had been 
taking a melancholy nap. 

"What a mess you are making here !" cried 
the elder sister, very angrily. "How can you 
take up Martha's time, Belinda ? And oh ! 
how can you forget yourself to this degree ? 
You seem to exult in your father's disgrace." 
Belinda flushed up. 

"Really, Anna, I do not know what you 
mean," said she, turning round, vexed for a 
minute, and clasping a long curtain in both 
arms. " I could not bear to see my father's 
room looking so shabby and neglected ; there 
is no disgrace in attending to his comfort. 
See, we have taken down those dusty curtains, 
and we are going to put up some others," said 
the girl, springing down from the chair and ex- 
hibiting her treasures. 

"And pray where is the money to come 
from," said Anna, "to pay for these wonderful 
changes ?" 

" They cost no money," said Belinda, laugh- 
ing. "I made them myself, with my own two 
hands. Don't you remember my old white dress 
that you never liked, Anna ? Look how I have 
pricked my finger. Now, go down," said the 
girl, in her pretty imperative way, " and don't 
come up again till I call you." 

Go down at Belle's bidding 

Anna went off fuming, and immediately set 



to work also, but in a different fashion. She 
unfortunately found that her father had return- 
ed, and was sitting in the little sitting-room 
down below by himself, with a limp paper of the 
day before open upon his knees. He was not 
reading. He seemed out of spirits, and was 
gazing in a melancholy way at the smouldering 
fire, and rubbing his bald head in a perplexed 
and troubled manner. Seeing this, the silly 
woman, by way of cheering and comforting the 
poor old man, began to exclaim at Belinda's be- 
havior, to irritate him, and overwhelm him with 
allusions and reproaches. 

"Scrubbing and slaving with her own hands," 
said Anna. " Forgetting herself; bringing us 
down lower indeed than we are already sunk. 
Papa, she will not listen to me. You should 
tell her that you forbid her to put us all to shame 
by her behavior." 

When Belle, panting, wear}', triumphant, and 
with a blackened nose and rosy cheek, opened 
the door of the room presently and called her 
father exultingly, she did not notice, as she ran 
up stairs before him, how wearily he followed 
her. A flood of light came from the dreary lit- 
tle room overhead. It had been transformed 
into a bower of white dimity, bright windows, 
clean muslin blinds. The fusty old carpet was 
gone, and a clean crumb-cloth had been put 
down, with a comfortable rug bcfjre the fire- 
place. A nosegay of jessamine stood on the 
chimney, and at each corner of the, four-post 
bed the absurd young decorator had stuck a 
smart bow, made out of some of her own blue 
ribbons, in place of the terrible plumes and tas- 
sels which had waved there in dust and dark- 
ness before. One of the two arm-chairs which 
blocked up the wall of the dining-room had been 
also covered out of some of Belinda's stores, and 
stood comfortably near the open window. The 
sun was setting over the great common outside, 
behind the mill and the distant fringe of elm- 
trees. Martha, standing all illuminated by the 
sunshine, with her mop in her hand, was grin- 
ning from ear to ear, and Belle turned and rush- 
ed into, her father's arms. But Mr. Barly was 
quite overcome. "My child," he said, " why 
do you trouble yourself so much for me ? Your 
sistei-'has told me all. I don't deserve it. I 
can not bear that you should be brought to this. 
My Belle working and slaving with your own 
hands through my fault — through my fault." 
The old man sat down on the side of the bed by 
which he had been standing, and laid his face 
in his hands, in a perfect agony of remorse and 
regret. Belinda was dismayed by the result of 
her labors. In vain she tried to cheer him and 
comfort him. The sweeter she seemed in his 
eyes, the more miserable the poor father grew at 
the condition to which he had brought her. 

For many days after he went about in a sort 
of despair, thinking what he could do to retrieve 
his ruined fortunes ; and if Belinda still rose * 
betimes to see to his comfort and the better or- I 
dering of the confused little household, she took ) 

care not to let it be known. Anna came down 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



1C3 



at nine, Fanny at ten. Anna would then spend 
several hours regretting her former dignities, 
reading the newspaper and the fashionable in- 
telligence, while the dismal strains of Fanny's 
piano (there was a jangling piano in the little 
drawing-room) streamed across the common. 
To a stormy spring, with wind flying and dust 
dashing against the window-panes, and gray 
clouds swiftly bearing across the wide open 
country, had succeeded a warm and brilliant 
summer, with sunshine flooding and spreading 
over the country. Anna and Fanny were able 
to get out a little now, but they Avere soon tired, 
and would sit down under a tree and remark to 
one another how greatly they missed their ac- 
customed drives. Belinda, who had sometimes 
at first disappeared now and then to cry mys- 
teriously a little bit by herself over her troubles, 
now discovered that at eigliteen, with good 
health and plenty to do, happiness is possible, 
even without a carriage. 

One day Mr. Barly, who still went into the 
city from habit, came home with some news 
which had greatly excited him. Wheal Tre 
Kosas, of which he still held a great many 
shares whicli he had never been able to dispose 
of, had been giving some signs of life. A fresh 
call was to be made ; some capitalist, with more 
money than he evidently knew what to do with, 
had been buying up a great deal of the stock. 
The works were to be resumed. Mr. Barly 
had always been satisfied that the concern was 
a good one. He would give every thing he 
had, he told Anna that evening, to be able to 
raise enough money now to buy up more of the 
sliares. His fortune was made if he could do 
so ; his children replaced in their proper posi- 
tion, and his name restored. Anna was in a 
state of greater flutter, if possible, than her fa- 
ther himself. Belle sighed ; she could not help 
feeling doubtful, but she did not like to say 
much on the subject. 

" Papa, this Wheal has proved a very treach- 
erous wheel of fortune to us," she hazarded, 
blushing and bending over her sewing; "we 
are very, very happy as we are." 

" Happy ?" said Anna, with a sneer. 

" Really, Belinda, you are too romantic," 
said Fanny with a titter ; while Mr. Barly 
cried out, in an excited way, "that she sliould 
be happier yet, and all her goodness and duti- 
ful ness should be rewarded in time." A sort 
of presentiment of evil came over Belinda, and 
lier eyes filled up with tears ; but she stitched 
them away and said no more. 

Unfortunately the only money Mr. Barly 
could think of to lay his hands upon was that 
sum in the Three per Cents upon which they 
were now living ; and even if he chose he could 
not touch any of it until Belinda came of age; 
unless, indeed, young Mr. Griffiths would give 
him permission to do so. 

" Go to him, papa," cried Anna, enthusiast- 
ically. " Go to him ; entreat, insist upon it, if 
necessary." 

All that evening Anna and Frances talked 



over their brilliant prospects. " I should like 
to see the Ogdens again," said poor little Fan- 
ny. " Perhaps we shall if we go back to Capu- 
let Square." " Certainly, certainly," said Anna. 
" I have heard that this Mr. Griffiths is a most 
uncouth and uncivilized person to deal with," 
continued Miss Barly, with her finger on her 
chin. " Papa, wouldn't it be better for me to 
go to Mr. Griffiths instead of you?" This, 
however, Mr. Barly would not consent to. 

Anna could hardly contain her vexation and 
spite when he came back next day dispirited, 
crestfallen, and utterly wretched and disappoint- 
ed. Mr. Griffiths would have nothing to say to 
it. 

"What's the good of a trustee," said he to 
Mr. Barly, "if he were to let you invest your 
money in such a speculative chance as that ? 
Take my advice, and sell out your shares now, 
if you can, for any thing you can get." 

"A surly, disagreeable fellow," said poor old 
Mr. Barly. "I heartily wish he had nothing 
to do with our affairs." 

Anna fairly stamped with rage. " What in- 
solence, when it is our own ! Papa, you have 
no spirit to allow such interference." 

Mr. Barly looked at her gravely, and said he 
should not allow it. Anna did not know what 
he meant. 

Belinda was not easy about her father all 
this time. He came and went in an odd excit- 
ed sort of way, stopping short sometimes as ho 
was walking across the room, and standing ab- 
sorbed in thought ! One day he went into the city 
unexpectedly about the middle of the day, and 
came back looking quite odd, pale, with curious 
eyes ; something was wrong, she could not tell 
what. In the mean time Wheal Tre Rosas 
seemed, spite of Mr. Griffiths's prophecies, to be 
steadily rising in the world. ]\Iore business 
had been done, the shares were a trifle higher. 
A meeting of directors was convened, and actu- 
ally a small dividend was declared at midsum- 
mer. It really seemed as if there was some 
chance after all that Anna should be reinstated 
in the barouche, in Capulet Square, and her 
place in society. She and Fanny were half 
wild with delight. "When we leave — " was 
the beginning of every sentence they uttered. 
Fanny wrote the good news to her friend Miss 
Ogden, and, under these circumstances, to Fan- 
ny's unfeigned delight, Emily Ogden thought 
herself justified in driving over to the village 
one fine afternoon and affably partaking of a 
cracked cupful of five o'clock tea. It was 
slightly smoked, and the milk was turned." 
Belinda had gone out for a walk and was not 
there to see to it at all ; I am afraid she did 
not quite forgive Emily the part she had played, 
and could not make up her mind to meet her. 

One morning Anna was much excited by the 
arrival of a letter directed to Mr. Barly in great 
round handwriting, and with a huge seal, all 
over bears and griffins. Her father was forever 
expecting news of his beloved Tre Rosas, and 
he broke the seal with some curiosity. But this 



IGi 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



was only an invitation to dine and sleep at Cas- 
tle Gardens from Mr. Griffiths, who said he had 
an offer to make Mr. Barly, and concluded by 
saying that he hoped Mr. Barly forgave him for 
the ungracious part he had been obliged to play 
the other day, and that, in like circiunstances, 
he would do the same by him. 

"I sha'n't go," said Mr. Barly, a little dog- 
gedly, putting the letter down. 

"Not go, papa? Why, you may be able to 
talk him over if you get him quietly to yourself. 
Certainly you must go, papa," said Anna. 
"Oh, I'm sure he means to relent — liow nice!" 
said Fanny. Even Belinda thought it was a 
pity he should not accept the invitation, and 
Mr. Barly gave way as usual. He asked them 
if they had any commands for him in town. 

"Oh, thank you, papa," said Frances. " If 
you are going shopping, 1 wish you would bring 
me back a blue alapaca, and a white grenadine, 
and a pink sou-poult, and a — " 

"My dear Fanny, that will be quite suffi- 
cient for the short time you remain here," inter- 
rupted Anna, who went on to give her father 
several commissions of her own — some writing- 
paper stamped with Barly Lodge and their 
crest in one corner; a jacket witii buttons for 
the knife-boy they had lately engaged upon the 
strength of their coming good fortune ; a new 
umbrella, a house-agent's list of mansions in the 
neighborhood of Capulet Square, the Journal 
cles Modes, and the New Court Guide. " Let 
me see, there was something else," said Anna, 
thoughtful]}', 

" Bella," said Mr. Barly, " how comes it you 
ask for nothing ? What can I bring you, my 
child ?" 

Belle looked up with one of her bright mel- 
ancholy smiles and replied, " If you should see 
any roses, papa, I think I should like a bunch 
of roses. We have none in the garden." 

" Roses !" cried Fanny, laughing. " I didn't 
know you cared for any thing but what was use- 
ful, Bella." 

" I quite expected you would ask for a sauce- 
pan, or a mustard-pot," said Anna, with a sneer. 

Belle sighed again, and then tlie three went 
and stood at the garden-gate to see their father 
off. It made a pretty little group for the geese 
on the common to contemplate — the two young 
sisters at the wicket, the elder under the shade 
of the veranda, Belle upright, smiling, waving 
her slim hand; she was above the middle height, 
she had fair hair and dark eye-brows and gray 
eyes, over which she had a peculiar way of 
blinking her smootli white eyelids ; and all 
about, the birds, the soft winds, tiie great green 
common with its gorgeous furze-blossoms blazing 
against the low bank of clouds in the horizon. 
Close at hand a white pony was tranquilly crop- 
ping the grass, and two little village children 
were standing outside the railings, gazing up 
open-mouthed at the pretty ladies who lived at 
tlie cottage. 



IV. 



The clouds which had been gathering all the 
afternoon broke shortly before Mr. Barly reach- 
ed his entertainer's house. He had tried to get 
there through Kensington Gardens, but could 
not make out the way, and went wandering 
round and round in some perplexity under the 
great trees with their creaking branches. Tiie 
storm did not last long and the clouds dispersed 
at sunset. When Mr. Barly rang at tlie gate 
of the villa in Castle Gardens at last that even- 
ing, he was weary, wet through, and f;\r less 
triumphant than he had been when he left home 
in the morning. The butler who let him in 
gave the bag which he had been carrying to the 
footman, and showed him the way up stairs im- 
mediately to the comfortable room which had 
been made ready for him. Upholsterers had 
done the work on the whole better than Belle 
with all her loving labor. The chairs were soft- 
er than her print-covered horse-hair cushions. 
The wax-lights were burning, although it was 
broad daylight. Mr. Barly went to the bay- 
window. The garden outside was a sigiit to 
see ; smooth lawns, arches, roses in i)rofusion 
and abundance, hanging and climbing and clus- 
tering every where, a distant gleam of a fount- 
ain, of a golden sky, a chirruping and rustling 
in the bushes and trellises after tlie storm. The 
sunset which was lighting up the fern on the 
rain-sprinkled common was twinkling through 
the rose-petals here, bringing out odors and 
aromas and whiffs of delicious scent. Rlr. Bar- 
ly thought .of Belle, and how he should like to 
see her tlitting about in the garden and picking 
roses to her heart's content. As he stood there 
he thought, too, with a pang, of his wife whom 
he had lost, and sighed in a sort of despair at 
the troubles which had fallen upon him of late; 
what would he not give to undo the work of the 
last few months, he thought — nay, of the last 
few days ? He had once come to this very 
house with his wife in their early days of mar- 
riage. He remembered it now, although he had 
not thought of it before. 

Sometimes it happens to us all that things 
which happened ever so long ago seem to make 
a start out of their jiroper places in the course 
of time, and come after us, until they catch us 
up, as it were, and surround us, so that one can 
hear the voices, and see the faces and colors, 
and feel the old sensations and thrills as keen- 
ly as at the time they occurred — all so curious- 
ly and strangely vivid that one can scarcely con- 
ceive it possible that years and years perhaps 
have passed since it all happened, and that the 
present shock proceeds from an ancient and al- 
most forgotten impulse. And so as Mr. Barly 
looked and remembered and thought of the past, 
a sudden remorse and shame came over him. 
Ho seemed to see his wife standing in the gar- 
den, holding the roses up over her head, looking 
like Belle; like, yet unlike. Why it should 
have been so, at the thought of his wife among 
the flowers, I can not tell ; but as he remem- 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



165 



bei-ed her he began to think of what he had done 
^that he was there in the house of the man 
he had defrauded — he began to ask himself how 
could he face him ? how could he sit down be- 
side him at table, and break his bread ? The 
poor old fellow fell back with a proan in one of 
the comfortable arm-chairs. Should he con- 
fess ? Oh no — no, that would be the most ter- 
rible of all. 

What he had done is simply told. When 
Guy Griffiths refused to let Mr. Barly lay hands 
on any of the money which he had in trust for 
his daughters, the foolish and angry old man 
had sold out a portion of the sum belonging to 
Mr. Griffiths which still remained in his own 
name. It had not seemed like dishonesty at 
the time, but now he would have gladly — oh, 
how gladly! awakened to find it all a dream. 
He dressed mechanicall}^ turning over every 
possible chance in his own mind. Let Wheal 
Tre Rosas go on and prosper, the first money 
should go to repay his loan, and no one would 
be the wiser. He went down into the libra- 
ry again when he was ready. It was empty 
still, and, to his relief, the master of the house 
Iiad not yet come back. He waited a \ery long 
time, looking at the clock, at the reviews on 
the table, at the picture of Mrs. Griffiths, whom 
he could remember in her youth, upon the wall. 
The butler came in again to say that his mas- 
ter had not yet returned. Some message had 
come by a boy, which was not very intelligible, 
he had been detained in the city. Mrs. Grif- 
fiths was not well enough to leave her room, but 
she hoped Mr. Barly would order dinner — any 
thing he required — and that lier son would 
shortly return. 

It was very late. There was nothing else to 
be done. Mr. Barly found a fire lighted in the 
great dining-room, dinner laid, one plate and 
one knife and fork, at the end of the long table. 
The dinner was excellent, so was the wine. 
The butler uncorked a bottle of champagne, the 
cook sent up chickens and all sorts of good 
things. Mr. Barly almost felt as if he, by some 
strange metempsychosis, had been converted into 
the owner of this handsome dwelling and all 
that belonged to it. At twelve o'clock Mr. 
Griffiths had not yet returned, and his guest, 
after a somewhat perplexed and solitary meal, 
retired to rest. 

Mr. Barly breakfasted by himself again next 
morning. Mr. Griffiths had not returned all 
night. In his secret heart Mr. Griffiths's guest 
was almost relieved by the absence of his enter- 
tainer : it seemed like a respite. Perhaps, after 
all, everything would go well, and the confession 
which he had contemplated with such terror the 
night before need never be made. For the pres- 
ent it was clearly no use to wait any longer at 
the house. Mr. Barly asked for a cab to take 
him to the station, left his compliments and re- 
grets, and a small sum of money behind him, 
and then, as the cab delayed, strolled out into 
the front garden to wait for it. 

Even in the front court the roses were all 



abloom ; a great snow cluster was growing over 
the door-way, a pretty tea-rose was hanging its 
head over the scraper ; against the outer railing 
which separated the house from the road, rose- 
trees had been planted. The beautiful pink 
fragrant heads were pushing through the iron 
railings, and a delicious little rose-wind came 
blowing in the poor old fellow's face. He be- 
gan to think again— no wonder— of Belle and 
her fancy for roses, and mechanically, without 
much reflecting upon what he was about, he 
stopped and inhaled the ravishing sweet smell 
of the great dewy flowers, and then put out his 
hand and gathered a spray from which three 
roses were hanging . . . . ; as he gathered it, a 
sharp thorn ran into his finger, and a heavy 
grasp was laid upon his arm 

"So it is you, is it, who sneak in and steal 
my roses?" said an angry voice. "Now that 
I know who it is, I shall give you in charge." 

Mr. Barly looked round greatly startled. He 
met the fierce glare of two dark brown eyes 
under shaggy brows, that were frowning verv 
fiercely. A broad, thick-set, round-shouldered 
young man of forbidding aspect had laid hold 
of him. The young man let go his grasp when 
he saw the mistake he had made, but did not 
cease frowning. 

" Oh ! it is you, Mr. Barly," he said. 

" I was just going," said the stockbroker, 
meekly. " I am glad 3-ou have returned in 
time for me to see you, Mr. Griffiths. I am 
sorry I took your rose. My youngest daughter 
is fond of them, and I thought I might, out of 
all this garden-full, you would not — she had 
asked — " 

There was something so stern and unforgiv- 
ing in Mr. Griffiths's face that the merchant 
stumbled in his words, and stopped short, sur- 
prised, in the midst of his explanations. 

" The roses were not yours, not if there were 
ten gardens full. I won't have my roses broken 
off," said Griffiths ; "they should be cut with a 
knife. Come back with me ; I want to have a 
little talk with you, Mr. Barly." 

Somehow the old fellow's heart began to beat, 
and he felt himself turn rather sick. 

"I was detained last night by some trouble 
in my office. One of my clerks, in whom I 
thought I could have trusted, absconded yester- 
day afternoon. I have been all the way to 
Liverpool in pursuit of him. What do you 
think should be done with him ?" And Mr. 
Griffiths, from under his thick eyebrows, gave 
a quick glance at his present victim, and seemed 
to expect some sort of answer. 

" You prosperous men can not realize what 
it is to be greatly tempted,'' said Mr. Barly, 
with a fiiint smile. 

" Do you know that Wheal Tre Rosas has 
come to grief a second time?" said young Mr. 
Griffiths, abrupt]_y, holding out the morning's 
Times, as they walked along. "I am not a 
prosperous man ; I liad a gi-eat many shares in 
that unlucky concern." 

Poor Barly stopped short and turned quite 



166 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



pale, and Legan to shake, so that he had to put 
his hand out and lean against the wall. 

Failed ! Was he doomed to misfortune ? 
Then there was never any chance for him — 
never. No hope! No hope of paying back 
tlie debt which weighed upon his conscience. 
He could not realize it. Failed ! The rose 
had fallen to the ground ; the poor unlucky 
man stood still, staring blankly in the other's 
grim, unrelenting face. 

" I am ruined," he said. 

"You are ruined! Is that the worst you 
have to tell me?" said Mr. Griffiths, still look- 
ing piercingly at him. Then the other felt that 
he knew all. 

" I have been very unfortunate — and very 
much to blame," said Mr. Barly, still trembling ; 
— "terribly to blame — Mr. Griffiths. I can only 
throw myself upon your clemency." 

"My clemency! my mercy! I am no phi- 
lanthropist," said. Guy, savagely. "I am a 
man of business, and you have defrauded me !" 

" Sir," said the stockbroker, finding some 
odd comfort in braving the worst, " you refused 
to let me take what was my own ; I have sold 
out some of your money to invest in this fatal 
concern. Heaven knows it was not for myself, 
but for the sake of — of — others ; and I thought 
to repay you ere long. You can repay yourself 
now. You need not reproach me any more. 
You can send me to prison if you like. I — I — 
don't much care what happens. My Belle, my 
poor Belle — my poor girls !" 

All this time Guy said never a word. He 
motioned Mr. Barly to follow him into the li- 
brary. Mv. Barly obeyed, and stood meekly 
waiting for the coming onslaught. He stood in 
the full glare of the morning sun, which was 
pouring through the unblinded window. His 
poor old head was bent, and his scanty hair 
stood on end in the sunshine. 

His eyes, avoiding the glare, went vacantly 
traveling along the scroll-work on the fender, 
and so to the coal-scuttle and to the skirting on 
the wall, and back again. Dishonored — yes. 
Bankrupt — yes. Three-score years had brought 
him to this — to shame, to trouble. It was a 
hard world for unlucky people, but Mr. Barly 
was too much broken, too weary and indiffer- 
ent, to feci very bitterly even against the world. 
Meanwhile Guy was going on with his reflec- 
tions, and, like those among us who are still 
young and strong, he could put more life and 
energy into his condemnation and judgment of 
actions done, than the unlucky perpetrators had 
to give to tlie very deeds themselves. Some 
folks do wrong as well as right, with scarcely 
more than half a mind to it. 

" How could you do such a thing?" cried the 
young man, indignantly, beginning to rush up 
and down the room in his hasty, clumsy way, 
knocking against tables and chairs as he went 
along. "How could you do it?" he repeated. 
"I learned it yesterday by chance. What can 
I say to you tliat your own conscience should 
not have told you already ? How could you do 



it?" Guy haa reached the great end window, 
and stamped with vexation and a mixture of 
anger and sorrow. For all his fierceness and 
grufiness, he was sorry for the poor feeble old 
man whose fate he held in his hand. There 
was the garden outside, and its treasure and 
glory of roses ; there was the rose-spray, lying 
on the ground, that old Barly had taken. It 
was lying broken and sliining upon the gravel 
— one rose out of the hundreds that were burst- 
ing and blooming, and fainting and falling on 
tlieir spreading stems. It was like the wrong 
old Barly had done his kinsman — one little 
wrong, Guy thought, one little handful out of 
all his abundance. He looked back, and by 
chance caught sight of their two figures reflect- 
ed in the glass at the other end of the room — 
his own image, the strong, round-backed, broad- 
shouldered young man, with gleaming white 
teeth and black bristling hair ; the feeble and 
uncertain culprit, with his broken wandei'ing 
looks, waiting his sentence. It was not Guy 
who delivered it. It came — no very terrible 
one after all, prompted by some unaccountable 
secret voice and impulse. Have we not all of 
us sometimes suddenly felt ashamed in our li-ves 
in the face of misfortune and sorrow ? Are we 
Pharisees, standing in the market-place, with 
our phylacteries displayed to the world ? we 
ask ourselves, in dismay — does this man go 
home justified rather than we ? Guy was not 
the less worthy of his Belinda, poor fellow, be- 
cause a thouglit of her crossed his mind, and be- 
cause lie blushed up, and a gentle look came 
into his eyes, and a shame into his heart — a 
shame of his strength and prospcrousness, of 
his probity and high honor. When had he 
been tempted ? What was it but a chance that 
he had been born what he was? And yet old 
Barly, in all his troubles, had a treasure in his 
possession for which Guy felt he would give all 
his good fortune and good repute, his roses — red, 
white, and golden — his best heart's devotion, 
which he secretly felt to be worth all the rest. 
Now was the time, the young man thought, to 
make that proposition which he had in his 
mind. 

"Look here," said Guy, hanging his great 
shaggy head, and speaking quickly and thickly, 
as if he was the culprit instead of the accuser. 
" You imply it was for your daugliter's sake 
that you cheated me. I can not consent to act 
as you would have me do and take your daugh- 
ter's money to pay myself back. But if one of 
them — Miss Belinda, since she likes roses — 
chooses to come here and work the debt off, she 
can do so. My mother is in bad health and 
wants a companion; she will engage her at — let 
me see, a hundred guineas a year, and in this 
way, by degrees, the debt will be cleared off." 

"In twenty years," said Mr. Barly, bewil- 
dered, relieved, astonished. 

"Yes, in twenty years," said Guy, as if that 
was the most natural thing in the world. "Go 
j home and consult her, and come back and give 
I me the answer." 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



167 



And as he spoke, the butler came in to say 
that the liansom was at the door. 

Poor old Barly bent his worn meek head and 
went out. He was shaken and utterly puzzled. 
If Guy had told him to climb up the cliimney, 
he would have obeyed. He could only do as 
he was bid. As it was, he clambered with dif- 
ficulty into the hansom, told the man to go to 
the station for Dumbleton, and he was driving 
off gladly when some one called after the cab. 
The old man peered out anxiously. Had Grif- 
fiths changed his mind ? Was his heart hard- 
ened like Pharaoh's at the eleventh hour? 

It was certainly Guy who came hastily after 
the cab, looking more awkward and sulky than 
ever. "Hoy! Stop! You have forgotten the 
roses for your daughter," said he, thrusting in 
a great bunch of sweet foam and freshness. As 
the cab drove along, people passing by looked 
up and envied the man who was carrying such 
loveliness through the black and dreary London 
streets. Could they have seen the face looking out 
behind the roses they might have ceased to envy. 

Belle was on the watch for her father at the 
garden gate, and exclaimed with delight, as she 
saw him toiling up the hill from tjie station with 
his huge bunch of flowers. She came running 
to meet him with fluttering skirts and out- 
stretched hands, and sweet smiles gladdening 
her face. " Oh, papa, how lovely ! Have you 
had a pleasant time?" Her father hardly re- 
sponded. "Take the roses, Belle," he said. "I 
have paid for them dearly enough." He went 
into the house wearily, and sat down in the 
shabby arm-chair. And then he turned and 
called Belinda to him wistfully, and put his 
trembling arm round about her. Poor old Barly 
was no mighty Jephthah ; but his feeble old head 
bent with some such pathetic longing and re- 
morse over his Belle as he drew her to him, and 
told her, in a few simple broken words, all the 
story of Aviiat had befallen him in those few 
hours since he went away. He could not part 
from her. "I can't, I can't," he said, as the girl 
put her tender arms round his neck 

Guy came to see me a few days after his in- 
terview with old Mr. Barly, and told me that 
his mother had surprised him by her willing 
acquiescence in the scheme. I could have ex- 
plained matters to him a little, but I thought 
it best to say nothing. Mrs. Griffiths had over- 
heard, and understood a word or two of what 
he had said to me that night, when she was 
taken ill. Was it some sudden remorse for the 
past ? Was it a new-born mother's tenderness 
stirring in her cold heart, whicli made her ques- 
tion and cross-question me the next time that I 
was alone with her? There had often been a 
talk of some companion or better sort of attend- 
ant. After the news came of poor old Barly"s 
failure, it was Mrs. Griffiths herself who first 
vaguely alluded again to this scheme. 

"I might engage one of those girls — the — 
the — Belinda, I think you called lier?" 

I was touched and took her cold hand and 
kissed it. 



"I am sure she would be an immense com- 
fort to you," I said. "You would never regret 
your kindness." 

The sick woman sighed and turned away im- 
patiently, and the i-esult was the invitation to 
dinner, which turned out so disastrously. 



When Mr. Barly came down to breakfast the 
morning after his return, he found another of 
those great square official-looking letters upon 
the table. There was a check in it for £100. 
"You will have to meet heavy expenses," the 
young man wrote. " I am not sorry to have 
an opportunity of proving to you that it was 
not the money which you have taken from me 
I grudged, but the manner in which you took 
it. Tlie only reparation you can make me is 
by keeping the inclosed for your present neces- 
sity." 

In truth the family prospects were not very 
brilliant. Myrtle Cottage was resplendent with 
clean windows and well-scrubbed door-steps, but 
the furniture wanted repairing, the larder refill- 
ing. Belle could not darn up the broken flap 
of the dining-room table, nor conjure legs of 
mutton out of bare bones, thougli she got up 
ever so early ; sweeping would not mend the 
hole in the carpet, nor could she dust the mil- 
dew stains off the walls, the cracks out of the 
looking-glass. 

Anna was morose, helpless, and jealous of 
the younger girl's influence over her father. 
Fanny was delicate; one gleam of happiness, 
however, streaked her horizon : Emily Ogden 
had written to invite her to spend a few days 
there. When Mr. Barly and his daughter had 
talked over Mr. Griffiths's proposition. Belle's 
own good sense told her that it would be folly 
to throw away this good chance. Let Mrs. Grif- 
fiths be ever so trying and difficult to deal with, 
and her son a thousand times sterner and ruder 
than he had already shown himself, she was 
determined to bear it all. Belinda knew her 
own powers, and felt as if she could endure any 
thing, and that she should never forget the gen- 
erosity and forbearance he had shown her poor 
father. Anna was delighted that her sister 
should go ; she threw off" the shawl in which she 
had mulfled herself up ever since their reverses, 
brightened up wonderfully, talked mysteriously 
of Fanny's prospects as she helped both the girls 
to pack, made believe to shed a few tears as Be- 
linda set oft' with her father, and bustled back 
into the house with renewed importance. Be- 
linda looked back and waved her hand, but 
Anna's back was already turned upon her, and 
she was giving directions to the page. 

Poor Belinda ! For all her courage and cheer- 
fulness her heart sank a little as they reached 
the great bronze gates in Castle Gardens. 
She would have been more unhappy still if she 
had not had to keep up her father's spirits. It 
was almost dinner-time, and Mrs. Griffiths's 



1G8 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



maid came down with a message. Her mistress 
was tired, and just going to bed, and would sec 
her in tlie morning ; Mr. Grilhtlis was dining in 
town ; Miss Williamson would call upon Miss 
Barly that evening. 

Dinner had been laid as usual in the great 
dining-room, with its marble columns and dra- 
peries, and Dutch pictures of game and of birds 
and flowers. Three servants were in waiting, a 
great silver chandelier lighted the di.>mal meal, 
huge dish-covers were upheaved,decanters of wine 
were handed round, all tlie en?/«es and delicacies 
came over again. Belle tried to eat to keep 
lier father in company. She even made little 
jokes, and whispered to him that they evidently 
meant to fatten her up. The poor old fellow 
cheered up by degrees ; the good claret warmed 
his feeble pulse, the good fare comforted and 
strengthened him. "1 wish Martha would make 
us ice-puddings," said Belle, helping him to a 
glittering mass of pale-colored cream, with nut- 
meg and vanilla, and all sorts of delicious spices. 
He had just finished the last mouthful when the 
butler started and rushed out of the room, a door 
banged, a bell rang violently, a loud scraping 
was heard in the hall, and an echoing voice 
said: "Are they come? Are tliey in the 
dining-room?" And the crimson curtain was 
lifted up, and the master of the house entered 
the room carrying a bag and a great-coat over 
his arm. As he passed the sideboard the but- 
ton of the coat caught in the fringe of a cloth 
wliich was spread upon it, and in a minute the 
cloth and all the glasses and plates which liad 
been left there came to the ground with a wild 
crash, which would have made Belle laugh, if 
she had not been too nervous even to smile. 

Guy merely told the servants to pick it all up, 
and i)ut down the tilings he was carrying and 
walked straight across the room to the two 
frightened people at the far end of the table. 
Poor fellow ! After shaking hands with old Bar- 
ly and giving Belle an abrupt little nod, all he 
could find to say was : 

"I hope you came of your own free-will, 
Miss Barly?" and as he spoke he gave a shy 
scowl and eyed her all over. 

" Yes," Belle answered, blinking her soft eyes 
to see him more clearly. 

"Then I'm very much obliged to vou,"said 
Guy. 

This was such an astonishingly civil answer 
that Belinda's courage rose. 

Poor Belinda's heart failed her again, how- 
ever, when Griffiths, still innn agony of shyness, 
then turned to her father, and in his roughest 
voice said : 

" You leave early in the morning, but I hope 
we shall keep your daughter for a very long time." 

Poor fellow ! he meant no liarm, and only 
intended this by way of conversation. Belle in 
her secret heart said to herself that he was a 
cruel brute 5 and poor Guy, having made this 
impression, broken a dozen wine-glasses, and 
gone through untold struggles of shyness, now- 
wished them both good-night. 



"Good-night, Sir. Barly; good-night. Miss 
Belle," said he. Something in his voice caused 
Belle to relent a little. 

" Good-night, Mr. GriflSths," said the girl, 
standing up, a slight graceful figure, simple and 
nymph-like,amidst all this pomp of circumstance. 
As Griffiths shuffled out of the room he saw her 
still ; all night he saw her in his dreams. That 
bright winsome young creature, dressed in white 
soft folds, with all the gorgeous gildings and dra- 
peries, and the lights burning, and the pictures 
and gold cups glimmering round about her. They 
were his, and as many more of them as lie chose : 
the inanimate, costly, sickening pomps and pos- 
sessions ; but a pure spirit like that, to be a bright 
living companion for him ? Ah, no ! that was 
not to be^not for him, not for such as him. 
Guy, for the first time in his life, as he went up 
stairs that evening, stopped and looked at him- 
self attentively in the great glass on the stair- 
case. He saw a great loutish, round-backed 
fellow, with a shaggy head and brown glittering 
eyes, and little strong white teeth like a dog's ; 
he gave an uncouth sudden caper of rage and 
regret at his own appearance. " To tiiink that 
happiness and life itself and love eternal depend 
upon tailors and hair-oil," groaned poor Guy, 
as he went into his room to write letters. 

Mrs. Griffiths did not see Belle that evening; 
she was always nervously averse to seeing 
strangers, but she had sent for me to speak to 
her, and as I was leaving she had asked me to 
go down and speak to Miss Barly before I went, 
Belinda was already in her room, but I ventured 
to knock at the door. She came to meet me 
with a bright puzzled fiice and all her pretty 
hair falling loose about her face. She had not 
a notion who I was, but begged me to come in. 
AVlien I had explained things a little, she pulled 
out a chair for me to sit down. 

" This house seems to mc so mysterious and 
unlike any thing else I have ever known," said 
she, " that I'm very grateful to any one who 
will tell me what I'm to do here — please sit 
down a little while." 

I told her that she would have to write notes, 
to add up bills, to read to Mrs. Griffiths, and to 
come to me whenever she wanted any help or 
comfort. " You were quite right to come," said 
I. "They are excellent people. Guy is the 
kindest, best fellow in the whole world, and I 
have long heard of you. Miss Barly, and I'm 
sure such a good daughter as you have been will 
be rewarded some day." 

Belle looked puzzled, grateful, a little proud, 
and very charming. She told me afterwards 
that it had been a great comfort to her father 
to hear of my little visit to her, and that she had 
succeeded in getting him away without any very 
painful scene. 

Poor Belle! I wonder how many tears she 
shed that day after her father was gone ? While 
she was waiting to he admitted to Mrs. Griffiths , 

she amused herself by wandering about the I 

house, dropjiing a little tear here and there as j 

she went along, and trying to think that it 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



169 



amused her to see so many yards of damask and 
stair-carpetinfj, all exactly alike, so many acres 
of chintz of the same pattern. 

" Mr. Griffiths desired me to say that this 
tower room was to be made ready for you to sit 
in, ma'am," said the respectful butler, meeting 
her and opening a door. "It has not been 
used before." And he gave her the key, to 
which a label was affixed, with "Miss Bakly's 
Kooji " written upon it, in the housekeeper's 
scrawling handwriting. 

Belle gave a little shriek of admiration. It 
was a square room, with four windows, over- 
looking the gardens, the distant park, and the 
broad cheerful road which ran past the house. 
An ivy screen had been trained over one of the 
windows, roses were clustering in garlands round 
the deep sill casements. There was an Indian 
carpet, and pretty silk curtains, and comfortable 
chintz chairs and sofas, upon which beautiful 
birds were flying and lilies wreathing. There 
was an old-fasliioned-looking piano, too, and a 
great bookcase filled with books and music. 
" They certainly treat me in the most magnifi- 
cent way," thought Belle, sinking down upon 
the sofa in the window which overlooked the 
rose-garden, and inhaling a delicious breath of 
fragrant air. "They can't mean to be very un- 
kind." Belle, who was a little curious, it must 
be confessed, looked at every tiling, made secret 
notes in her mind, read the titles of the books, 
examined the china, discovered a balcony to her 
turret. There was a little writing-table, too, 
witii paper and pens and inks of various colors, 
which especially pleased her. A glass cup of 
cut roses had been placed upon it, and two dear 
little green books, in one of which some one had 
left a paper-cutter. 

The first was a book of fairy tales, from which 
I hope the good fairy editress will forgive me for 
stealing a sentence or two. 

The other little green book was called the 
Golden Treasury ; and when Belle took it up, it 
opened where the paper-cutter had been left, at 
the seventh page, and some one had scored the 
sonnet there. Belle read it, and somehow, as 
she read, the tears in her eyes started afresh. 

Being your plave, what sliould I do IdmI tend 
Upon the hours and times of your desire ? 

it began. "To " had been scrawled under- 
neath; and then the letter following the "To" 
erased. Belle blinked her ej'es over it, but could 
make nothing out. A little farther on she found 
another scoring — 

Oh, my love's like a red, red rose 
That's newly sprung in June ! 

Oh, ray love's like the melody 
That's sweetly played in tune ! 

and this was signed with a G. 

"Love ! That is not for me ; but I wish I 
had a slave," thought poor Belle, hanging her 
head over the book as it lay open in her lap, 
" and that he was clever enough to tell me what 
my father is doing at this minute." She could 
imagine it for herself, alas ! without any magic 
interference. She could see the drearv little 



cottage, her poor old father wearily returning 
alone. She nearly broke down at the thought, 
but some one knocked at the door at that in- 
stant, and she forced herself to be calm as one 
of the servants came in with a telegram. Be- 
linda tore open her telegram in some alarm and 
trembling terror of bad news from home ; and 
then smiled a sweet loving smile of relief. The 
telegram came from Guy. It was dated from 
his office. "Your father desires me to .send 
word that he is safe home. He sends his love. 
I have been to D. on business, and traveled 
down with him." 

Belinda could not help saying to herself that 
Mr. Griffiths was very kind to have thought of 
her. His-kindness gave her courage to meet his 
mother. 

It was not very much tliat Belle had to do for 
Mrs. Griffiths ; but whatever it was she accom- 
plished well and thorough!}', as was her way. 
Whatever the girl put her hand to, she put her 
whole heart to at the same time. Her energy, 
sweetness, and good spirits cheered the sick 

[ woman and did her infinite good. Mrs. Grif- 

I fiths took a great fancy to her, and liked to have 
her about her. Belle lunched with her the first 
day. . She had better dine down below, Mrs. 

I Griffiths said ; and when dinner-time came the 

! girl dressed herself, smoothed her yellow curls, 

I and went shyly down the great staircase into the 
dining-room. It must be confessed that she 
glanced a little curiously at the table, wonder- 
ing whether she was to dine alone or in compa- 

' ny. This problem was soon solved ; a side-door 

j burst open, and Guy made his appearance, look- 

: ing shy and ashamed of it as he came up and 
shook hands with her. 

"Miss Belinda," said he, "will you allow 

I me to dine with you ?" 

j "You must do as you like," said Belinda, 
quickly, starting back. 

" Not at all," said Mr. Griffiths. " It is en- 
tirely as you shall decide. If you don't like my 
company, you need only say so. I shall not be 
offended. Well, shall we dine together?" 

"Oh, certainly," laughed Belinda, confused 
in her turn. 

So the two sat down to dine together. For 
the first time in his life Guy thought the great 

I room light enough and bright and comfortable. 

, The gold and silver plate didn't seem to crush 
him, nor the draperies to suffocate, nor the great 
columns ready to fall upon him. There was Be- 

I linda picking her grapes and playing with the 
sugar-plums. He could hardly believe it possi- 
ble. His ])0or old heart gave great wistful 
thumps (if such a thing is possible) at the sound 

I of her voice. She had lost much of her shy- 
ness, and they were talking of any thing that 

! came into their heads. She had been telling 
him about Myrtle Cottage, and the spiders there, 

I and looking up, laughing, siie was surprised to 

see him staring at her very sadly and kindly. 
He turned away abruptly, and began to help 

himself to all sorts of things out of the silver 

dishes. 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



"It's very good of you," Guy said, looking 
away, " to come and brighten tliis dismal house, 
and to stay with a poor suft'cring woman and a 
great uncouth fellow like myself." 

"But you are both so very kind," said Be- 
linda, simply. " I shall never forget — " 

" Kind !" cried Guy, very roughly. "I be- 
haved like a brute to you and your father yes- 
terday. I am not used to ladies' society. I am 
stupid and shy and awkward." 

" If you were very stupid," said Belle, smil- 
ing, "you would not have said that, Mr. Grif- 
fiths. Stupid people always think themselves 
charming." 

When Guy said good-niglit immediately af- 
ter dinner as usual, he sighed, and looked at her 
again with such kind and melancholy eyes that 
Belle felt an odd affection and compassion for 
him. " I never should have thought it possible 
to like him so much," thought tlie girl, as she 
slowly went along the passage to Mrs. Griffiths's 
door. 

It was an odd life this young creature led in 
the great silent stiHing house, with uncoutli Guy 
for her playfellow, the sick woman's complaints 
and fancies for her duty in life. The silence of 
it all, its very comfort and splendidness, oppress- 
ed Belinda more at times than a simpler and 
more busy life. But the garden was an endless 
pleasure and refreshment, and she used to stroll 
about, skim over the terraces and walks, smell 
the roses, feed the birds and the gold-fishes. 
Sometimes I have stood at my window watch- 
ing the active figure flitting by in and out un- 
der the trellis, fifteen times round the pond, 
thirty-two times along tlie terrace walk. Belle 
was obliged to set herself tasks, or she would 
have got tired sometimes of wandering about 
by herself. All this time she never thought of 
Guy except as a curious sort of companion ; 
any thought of sentiment had never once oc- 
curred to her. 



VI. 

One day that Belle had been in the garden 
longer than usual, she remembered a note for 
Mrs. Grifiiths that she had forgotten to write, 
and springing up the steps into the hall, on the 
way, with some roses in her apron, slie sudden- 
ly almost ran up against Guy, who had come 
home earlier than usual. The girl stood blush- 
ing and looking more charming than ever. The 
young fellow stood quite still too, looking with 
such expressive and admiring glances that Be- 
linda blushed deeper still, and made iiaste to es- 
cape to her room. Presently the gong sound- 
ed, and there was no help for it, and she had to 
go down again. Guy was in tlie dining-room 
as polite and as shy as usual, and Belinda grad- 
ually forgot the passing impression. The but- 
ler put the dessert on the tabic and left them, 
and when she had finished her fruit, Belinda got 
up to say good-bye. As she was leaving tlie room 
she heard Guy's footsteps following. She sto])- 



ped short. He came up to her. He looked 
very pale, and said suddenly, in a quick, husky 
voice, " Belle, will you marry me ?" Poor Be- 
linda opened her gray eyes full in his face. She 
could hardly believe she had iieard aright. She 
M'as startled, taken aback, but she followed lier 
impulse of the moment and answered gravely, 
"No, Guy." 

He wasn't angiy or surprised. He had 
known it all along, poor fellow, and expected 
1 nothing else. He only sighed, looked at her 
once again, and then went away out of the 
room. 

Poor Belle ! she stood there where he had 
left her — the lights burnt, the great table glit- 
tered, the curtains waved. It was like a strange 
dream. She clasped her hands together, and 
then suddenly ran and fled away up to her own 
room — frightened, utterly puzzled, bewildered, 
not knowing what to do or to whom to speak. 
It was a comfort to be summoned as usual to 
read to Mrs. GriflSths. She longed to pour out 
her story to the poor lady, but she dreaded agi- 
tating her. She read as she was bid. Once 
she stopped short, but her mistress impatiently 
motioned her to go on. She obeyed, stumbling 
and tumbling over the words before her, until 
there came a knock at the door, and, contrary 
to his custom, Guy entered the room. He 
looked very pale, poor fellow, and sad and sub- 
dued. "I wanted to see you. Miss Belinda," 
he said aloud, " and to tell you that I hope 
this will make no difference, and that you will 
remain with us as if nothing had happened. 
You warned me, mamma, but I could not liel]) 
myself. It's my own fault. Good-night. That 
is all I had to say." 

Belle turned wistfully to Mrs. Griffiths. The 
thin hand was impatiently twisting the coverlet. 
"Of course — who would have any thing to say 
to him ? — Foolish fellow 1" slie muttered in her 
indistinct way. " Go on, Miss Barly." 

" Oh, buttell me first, ought I remain here ?" 
Belle asked imploringly. 

"Certainly, unless you are unhappy with 
us," the sick woman answered, peevishly. Mrs. 
Griffiths never made any other allusion to what 
had happened. I think the truth was that she 
! did not care very much for any thing outside 
the doors of her sick-room. Perhaps she 
thought her son had been over hasty, and that 
in time Belinda might change her mind. To 
people lying on their last sick-beds, the terrors, 
anxieties, longings of life seem veiy curious and 
strange. They seem to forget that they were 
once anxious, hopeful, eager themselves, as 
tliey lie gazing at the awful veil which will 
so soon be withdrawn from before their fiiding 
eyes. 

A sort of constraint came between Guy ar.d 
Belinda at first, but it wore away by degrees. 
He often alluded to his proposal, but in so hope- 
less and gentle a way that she could not be an- 
gry ; still she was disquieted and unhappy. 
Slie felt that it was a false and awkward po- 
sition. She could not bear to sec him looking 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



171 



ill and sad, as he did at times, with great black ; 
rings under his dark eyes. It was worse still , 
when she saw him brightened up witli happi- i 
ness at some chance word she let fall now and i 
then — speaking inadvertently of his house as 
" home," or of the roses next year. He must 
not mistake her. She could not bear to pain 
hira by hard words, and yet sometimes she felt 
it was her duty to speak them. One day she 
met him in the street, on her way back to the 
house. The roll of the passing carriage-wheels j 
gave Guy confidence, and, walking by her side, i 
he began to say, "Now I never know what de- 
lightful surprise may not be waiting for me at 
every street corner. Ah, Miss Belle, my whole 
life might be one long dream of wonder and 
happiness, if . . . ." "Don't speak like this 
ever again, or I shall have to go away," said ' 
Belle, interrupting, and crossing the road, in her 
agitation, under the very noses of two omnibus j 
horses. "I wish I could like you enough to 
marry you. I shall always love you enough to 
be your friend ; please don't talk of any thing 
else." Belle said this in a bright brisk implor- | 
ing decided tone, and hoped to have put an end j 
to the matter. That day she came to me and | 
told her little story. There were almost as 
many reasons for her staying as for her leav- 
ing, the poor child thought. I could not advise 
her to go, for the assistance that slic was able to 
send home was very valuable. (Guy laughed, 
and utterly refused to accept a sixpence of her 
salary.) Mrs. Griffiths evidently wanted her; 
Guy, poor fellow, would have given all he had 
to keep her, as we all knew too well. 

Circumstance orders events sometimes, and 
people themselves, with all their powers and 
knowledge of good and of evil, are but passive 
instruments in the hands of fate. News came 
that Mr. Barly was ill ; and little Belinda, 
with an anxious face, and a note in her trem- 
bling hand, came into Mrs. Griffiths's room one 
day to say she must go to him directly. " Your 
father is ill," wrote Anna. " Les convenances 
demand your immediate return to him." Guy 
happened to be present, and when Belle left the 
room he followed her out into the passage. 

"You are going?" he said. 

"I don't know what Anna means by 'les 
convenances,' but papa is ill, and wants me," 
said Belinda, almost crying. 

"And I want you," aaid Guy; "but that 
don't matter, of course. Go — go, since you 
wish it." 

After all, perhaps it was well she was going, 
thought Belle, as she went to pack up her box- 
es. Poor Guy's sad face haunted her. She 
seemed to carry it away in her box with her 
other possessions. 

It would be difficult to describe what he felt, 
poor fellow, when he came upon the luggage 
standing ready corded in the hall, and he found 
that Belle had taken him at his word. He w'as 
so silent a man, so self-contained, so diffident of 
his own strength to win her love in time, so un- 
used to the ways of the world and of women, 



that he could be judged by no ordinary rule. 
His utter despair and bewilderment would have 
been laughable almost, if they had not been so 
genuine. He paced about the garden with 
hasty uncertain footsteps, muttering to himself 
as he went along, and angrily cutting at the 
rose-hedges. "Of course she must go, since she 
wished ^it ; of course she must — of course, of 
course. What would the house be like when 
she was gone?" For an instant a vision of a 
great dull vault without warmth, or light, or 
color, or possible comfort any where, rose before 
him. He tried to imagine what his life would 
be if she never came back into it ; but as he 
stood still trying to seize the picture, it seemed 
to him that it was a thing not to be imagined or 
thought of. Wherever he looked he saw her, 
every where and in every thing. He had imag- 
ined himself unhappy ; now he discovered that 
for the last few weeks, since- little Belinda had 
come, he had basked in the summer she had 
brought, and found new life in the sunshine of 
her presence. Of an evening he had come home 
eagerly from his daily toil looking to find her. 
When he left early in the morning he would 
look up with kind eyes at her windows as he 
drove away. Once, early one morning, he liad 
passed her near the lodge-gate, standing in the 
shadow of the great aspen-tree, and making 
way for the horses to go by. Belle was holding 
back the clean stiff folds of her pink muslin 
dress ; she looked up with that peculiar blink 
of her gray eyes, smiled, and nodded her bright 
head, and shrunk away from the horses. Ev- 
ery morning Guy used to look under the tree 
after that to see if she were there by chance, 
even if he had parted from her but a minute be- 
fore. Good stupid old fellow ! he used to 
smile to himself at his own foolishness. One 
of his fancies about her was that Belinda was a 
bird that would fly away some day, and perch 
up in the branches of one of the great trees, 
far, far beyond his reach. And now was tliis 
fiincy coming true ? -was she going — leaving him 
—flying away where he could not follow her ? 
He gave an inarticulate sound of mingled anger 
and sorrow and tenderness, which relieved his 
heart, but which puzzled Belle herself, who was 
coming down the garden-walk to meet him. 

"I was looking for you, Mr. Griffiths," said 
Belle. "Your mother wants to speak to you. 
I, too, wanted to ask you something," the girl 
went on, blushing. "She is kind enough to 
wish me to come back But — " 

Belle stopped short, blushed up, and began 
pulling at the leaves sprouting on either side 
of the narrow alley. When she looked up af- 
ter a minute, with one of her quick short-sight- 
ed glances, she found that Guy's two little 
brown eyes wei'e fixed upon her steadily. 

"Don't be afraid that I shall trouble you," 
he said, reddening. "If you knew — if you 
had the smallest conception what your presence 
is to me, you would come back. I think you 
would." 

Miss Bnrly didn't answer, but blushed up 



172 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



again and walked on in silence, hanging her 
head to conceal the two bright tears whicii had 
come into her eyes. She was so sorry, so very 
sorry. Bnt what could she do ? Guy had 
walked on to the end of the rose-garden, and 
Belle had followed. Now, instead of turning 
towards the house, he had come out into the 
bright- looking kitchen -gard^, with its red 
brick walls hung with their various draperies 
of lichen and mosses, and garlands of clamber- 
ing fruit. Four little paths led up to the turf 
carpet which had been laid down in the centre 
of the garden : here a fountain plashed with a 
tranquil fall of waters upon water : all sorts of 
sweet kitchen herbs, mint and thyme and pars- 
ley, were growing along the straight-cut beds. 
Birds were pecking at the nets along tlie walls ; 
one little sparrow that had been drinking at 
the fountain flew away as they approached. 
The few bright - colored straggling flowers 
caught the sunlight and reflected it in sparks 
like the water. 

The master of this pleasant jilace put out his 
great clumsy hand, and took hold of Belle's 
soft reluctant fingers. " All, Belle," he said, 
"is there no hope for me? Will there never 
be any chance ?" 

"I wish with all my heart tliere was a 
chance," said poor Belle, pulling away her 
hand impatiently. " Why do you wound and 
pain me by speaking again and again of what 
is far best forgotten? Dear Mr. Griffiths, I 
will marry yon to-morrow, if you desire it," 
said the girl, with a sudden impulse, turning 
pale and remembering all that she owed to his 
forbearance and gentleness ; ' ' but please, please 
don't ask it." She looked so frightened and 
desjierate that poor Guy felt that this was worse 
than any thing, and sadly shook his head. 

"Don't be afraid," he said. "I don't want 
to marry you against your will, or keep you 
here. Yes, you shall go home, and I will stop 
here alone, and cut my throat if I find I can not 
bear the place without you. I am only joking. 
I dare say I shall do very well," said Griffiths 
with a sigh ; and he turned away and began 
stamping off in his clumsy way. Then he sud- 
denly stopped and looked back. Belle was 
standing in the sunshine with her face hidden 
in her hands. She was so puzzled, and sorry, 
and hopeless, and mournful. The only thing 
she could do was to cry, poor child ! — and by 
some instinct Griffiths guessed that she was 
crying; he knew it — his heart melted with 
pity. The poor fellow came back trembling. 
"My dearest," he said, "don't cry. What a 
brute I am to make you cry ! Tell me any thing 
in the whole world I can do to make you happy." 

" If I could only do any thing for you," said 
Belle, "that would make me happier." 

"Then come back, my dear," said Guy, 
" and don't fly away yet forever, as you threat- 
ened just now. Come back and cheer up my 
mother, and make tea and a little sunshine for 
me, until — until some confounded fellow comes 
and carries you off"," said poor Griffiths. 



"Oh, that will never be. Yes; I'll come," 
said Belle, earnestly. " I'll go home for a 
week and come back ; indeed I will." 

"Only let me know," said Mr. Griffiths, 
"and my mother will send the carriage for 
you. Shall we say a week?" he added, anx- 
ious to drive a hard bargain. 

"Yes," said Belinda, smiling; "I'll write 
and tell you the day." 

Nothing would induce Griffiths to order the 
carriage until after dinner, and it was quite 
late at night when Belle got home. 



VII. 

Poor little Myrtle Cottage looked very small 
and shabby as she drove up in the darkness to 
the door. A brilliant illumination streamed 
from all the windows. Martha rubbed her el- 
bows at the sight of the gorgeous equipage. 
Fanny came to the door surprised, laughing, 
giggling, mysterious. Every thing looked much 
as usual, except that a large and pompous-look- 
ing gentleman was sitting on the drawing-room 
sofa, and beside him Anna, with a huge ring on 
her fourth finger, attempting to blush as Belle 
came into the room. Belle saw that she was 
not wanted, and ran up stairs to her father, who 
was better, and sitting in the arm-chair by his 
bedside. The poor old man nearly cried with 
delight and surprise, held out both his shaking 
hands to her, and clung tenderly to the bright 
young daughter. Belle sat beside him, holding 
his hand, asking him a hundred questions, kiss- 
ing his wrinkled face and cheeks, and telling 
him all that had happened. Mr. Barly, too, 
had news to give. The fat gentleman down 
stairs, he told Belle, was no other than Anna's 
old admirer, the doctor, of whom mention has 
been made. He had re-proposed the day be- 
fore, and was now sitting on tlie sofa on proba- 
tion. Fanny's prospects, too, seemed satisfacto- 
ry. " She assures me," said Mr. Barly, " that 
young Ogden is on the point of coming forward. 
An old man like me, my dear, is naturally anx- 
ious to see his children settled in life and com- 
fortably provided for. I don't know who would 
be good enough for my Belinda. Not that 
awkward lout of a Griffiths. No, no; we must 
look out for better than that." 

"Oh, papa, if you knew how good and how 
kind he is !" said Belle, with a sudden revulsion 
of feeling; bnt she broke off abruptly, and spoke 
of something else. 

The other maid, who had already gone to 
bed the night before when Belle arrived at the 
cottage, gave a loud shriek when she went into 
the room next morning and found some one 
asleep in the bed. Belle awoke, laughed and ex- 
plained, and asked her to bring up her things. 

"Bring 'em hup?" said the girl. "What! 
all them 'ampers that's come by the cart? No, 
miss, that's more than me and Martha have the 
strength for. I should crick my back if I were 
to attempt for to do such a thing." 



BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 



173 



" Hampers — what hampers ?" Belle asked ; 
but when she went down she found the little 
passage piled with cases, flowers and game, and 
preserves, and some fine old port for Mr. Barlj^, 
and some roses for Belle. As Belinda came 
down stairs, in her fresh morning-dress, Anna, 
who had been poking about and examining tlie 
various packages, looked up with offended dig- 
nity. 

"I think, 'considering that I am mistress 
here," said she, "these hampers slionld have 
been directed to me, instead of to you, Belinda. 
Mr. Griffiths strangely forgets. Indeed, I fear 
tliat you too are wanting in any great sense of 
ladylike propriety." 

"Prunes, prism, propriety," said Belle, gay- 
ly. " Never mind, dear Anna ; he's sent the 
things for all of us. Mr. Griffitiis certainly 
never meant me to drink two dozen bottles of 
port wine in a week." 

" You are evading the question," said Anna. 
"I have been wishing to talk to you for some 
time past — come into the dining-room, if you 
please." 

It seems almost impossible to believe, and yet 
I can not help fearing that out of sheer spite and 
envy Anna Barly had even tlien determined 
that, if she could prevent it, Belinda should 
never go back to the Castle Gardens again, but 
remain in the cottage. The siglit of the pretty 
things which had been given her there, all the 
evidences which told of the esteem and love in 
which she was held, maddened the foolish wom- 
an. I can give no other reason for the way in 
which she opposed Belinda's return to Mrs. 
Griffiths. " Her duty is at home," said Anna. 
" I myself shall be greatly engaged with Thom- 
as " — so she had already learnt to call Dr. Rob- 
inson. " Fanny also is preoccupied ; Belinda 
must remain." 

Wlien Belle demurred, and said that for the 
next few weeks she would like to return as she 
had promised, and stay until Mrs. Griffiths was 
suited with another companion, Anna's indig- 
nation rose and overpowered her dignity. * Was 
it her sister who was so oblivious of the laws of 
society, propriety, modesty ? Anna feared that 
Belinda had not reflected upon the strange ap- 
pearance her conduct must have to others, to 
the Ogdens, to them all. What was the secret 
attraction which took her back ? Anna said 
she had rather not inquire, and went on with her 
oration. "Unmaidcnly — not to be thought 
of — the advice of those whose experience might 
be trusted " — does one not know the rigmarole 
by heart? When even the father, who had 
been previously talked to, sided with his eldest 
daugliter; when Thomas, who was also called 
into the fa'mily conclave, nodded his head in an 
ominous manner, poor little Belinda, frighten- 
ed, shaken, undecided, almost promised that 
she would do as they desired ; and as she prom- 
ised, the thought of poor Guy's grief and wistful 
haggard face came before her, and her poor little 
heart ached and sank at the thought. But not 
even Belinda, with all her courage, could resist 



the decision of so much experience, or Anna's 
hints and innuendoes, or, more insurmountable 
than all the rest, a sudden shyness and con- 
sciousness which had come over the poor little 
maiden, who turned crimson with shame and 
annoyance. 

Belinda had decided as she was told — had 
done as her conscience bade her — and yet there 
was but little satisfaction in this duty accom- 
plished. For about half an hour she went about 
feeling like a heroine, and then, without any 
reason or occasion, it seemed to her that the 
mask had come oflf her foce, that siie had dis- 
covered herself to be a traitress, that she had 
betrayed and abandoned her kindest friends ; 
she called herself a selfish, ungrateful wretch, 
she wondered what Guy would think of her ; 
siie was out of temper, out of spirits, out of pa- 
tience with herself, and the click of the blind 
swinging in the draught was unendurable. The 
complacent expression of Anna's handsome face 
put her teeth on edge. When Fanny tumbled 
over the footstool with a playful shriek, to every 
body's surprise Belinda burst out crying. 

Those few days were endless, slow, dull, un- 
bearable — every second brought its pang of re- 
gret and discomfort and remorse. It seemed 
to Belinda that her ears listened, her mouth 
talked, her eyes looked at the four walls of the 
cottage, at the furze on the common, at the 
foces of her sisters, with a sort of mechanical ef- 
fort. As if she were acting her daily life, not 
j living it naturally and without effort. Only 
when she was with her father did she feel un- 
constrained ; but even then there was an unex- 
pressed reproach in her heart like a dull pain 
that she could not quiet. And so the long days 
lagged. Although Dr. Kobinson enlivened them 
with his presence, and the Ogdens drove up to 
carry Fanny off to the happy regions of Capulet 
Square (E. for Elysium Anna, I think, would 
have docketed the district), to Belinda those 
days seemed slow, and dark, and dim, and al- 
most hopeless at times. 

On the day on which Belinda was to have re- 
turned, there came a letter to me telling her story 
plainly enough : " I must not come back, my 
dearest Miss Williamson," she wrote. " I am 
going to write to Mrs. Griffiths and dear kind 
Mr. Guy to-morrow to tell them so. Anna 
does not tliink it is right. Papa clings to me 
and wants me, now that both my sisters are go- 
ing to leave him. How often I shall think of 
you all — of all your goodness to me, of the 
beautiful roses, and my dear little room ! Do 
you think Mr. Guy would let me take one or 
two books as a remembrance — Hume's History 
of England, Porteous's Sermons and Essays on 
Reform ? I should like to have something to re- 
mind me of you all, and to look at sometimes, 
since they say I am not to see you all again. 
Good-bye, and thank you and Mrs. II. a thou- 
sand thousand times. — Your ever, ever affec- 
tionate Belinda. P.S. — Might I also ask for 
that little green volume of the Golden Treasury 
which is up in the tower-room ?" 



174 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



This was what Guy had feared all along. 
Once she was gone, lie knevv by instinct she 
would never come back. I hardly know how 
it fared with the poor fellow all this time. He 
kept out of our way, and would try to escape 
me, but once by chance I met him, and I was 
shocked by the change which had come over him. 
I had my own opinion, as we all have at times. 
H. and I had talked it over — for old women are 
good for something, after all, and can sometimes 
play a sentimental part in life as well as young 
ones. It seemed to us impossible that Belinda 
should not relent to so much goodness and un- 
selfishness, and come back again some day nev- 
er to go any more. We knew enough of Anna 
Early to guess the part she liad played, nor did 
we despair of seeing Belinda among us once 
more. But some one must help her, she could 
not reach us unassisted ; and so I told Mrs. Grif- 
fiths, who had remarked upon her son's distress 
and altered looks. 

"If you will lend us the carriage," I said, 
"either H. or I will go over to Dumbleton to- 
morrow, and I doubt not that we shall bring 
her." n. went. She told me about it afterwards. 
Anna was fortunately absent. Mr. Early was 
down stairs, and H. was able to talk to him a 
little bit before Belinda came down. The poor 
old man always thought as he was told to think, 
and since his illness he was more uncertain and 
broken than ever. He was dismayed when H. 
told him in her decided way tliat he was prob- 
ably sacrificing two people's happiness for life 
by his ill-timed interference. When at last Be- 
linda came down, she looked almost as ill as 
Grifiiths himself. She rushed into H.'s arms 
with a scream of delight, and eagerly asked a 
hundred questions. "How were they all — 
what were they all doing?" 

H. was very decided. Every body was very ill 
and wanted Belinda back. "Your father says 
he can spai-e you very well," said she. "Why 
not come back witli me this afternoon, if only 
for a time? It is your duty," H. continued, in 
her dry way. "You should not leave them in 
this uncertainty." " Go, my child — pray go," 
urged Mr. Early. And at last Belinda consent- 
ed shyly, nothing loath. 

H. began to question her when she had got 
her safe in the carriage. Belinda said slie had 
not been well. She could not sleep, she said. 
Sliehad had bad dreams. She blushed, and con- 
fessed that she had dreamt of Guy lying dead in 
the kitchen-garden. She had gone about the 
house trying, indeed she had tried, to be cheer- 



ful and busy as usual, but she felt unhappy, un- 
grateful. " Oh, what a foolish girl I am !" she 
said. All the lights were burning in the little 
town, the west was glowing and reflected in the 
river, the boats trembled and shot through the 
shiny waters, and the people were out upon the 
banks, as they crossed the bridge again on their 
way from Dumbleton. Belle wfis happier, cer- 
tainly, but crying from agitation. 

"Have I made him miserable, poor fellow? 
Oh, I think 1 shall blame myself all my life," 
said she, covering her face with her hands. "Oh, 
H. ! H. ! what shall I do?" 

H. dryly replied that she must be guided by cir- 
cumstances, and when they reached Castle Gar- 
dens kissed her and set her down at the great 
gate, while she herself went home in the carriage. 
It was all twilight by this time among the roses. 
Belinda met the gate-keeper, who touched his 
hat and told her his master was in the garden ; 
and so instead of going into the house she flitted 
away towards the garden, crossed the lawns, and 
went in and out among the bowers and trellises 
looking for him — frightened by her own temeri- 
ty at first, gaining courage by degrees. It was 
so still, so sweet, so dark ; the stars were coming 
out in the evening sky, a meteor went flashing 
from east to west, a bat flew across her path ; all 
the scent hung heavy in the air. Twice Belinda 
called out timidly, "Mr. Griifiths, Mr. Grif- 
fiths !" but no one answered. Then she remem- 
bered her dream in sudden terror, and hurried 
into the kitchen-garden to the fountain where 
they had parted. 

What had happened? Some one was lying 
on the grass. Was this her dream ? was it Guy ? 
was he dead ? had she killed him ? Belinda 
ran up to him, seized his hand, and called him 
Guy — dear Guy; and Guy, who had fallen asleep 
from very weariness and sadness of heart, ojiened 
his eyes to hear himself called by the voice he 
loved best in the world ; while the sweetest eyes, 
full of tender tears, were gazing anxiously into 
his ugly foce. Ugly ? Fairy tales have told 
us this at least, that ugliness and dullness do not 
exist for those who truly love. Had she ever 
thought him rough, uncouth, unlovable? Ah! 
she had been blind in those days ; slie knew bet- 
ter now. As they walked back througli the twi- 
light garden that night, Guy said, humbly : "I 
sha'n't do you any credit, Belinda ; I can only 
love you." 

" OnJji !" said Belinda. 

She didn't finish lier sentence ; but he under- 
stood very well what she meant. 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 



There is something sad in most pretty stories, 
in most lovely strains, in the tenderest affections 
and friendshii)s ; but tragedy is a different thing 
from the indefinable feeling which lifts us be- 
yond to-day into that dear and happy region where 
our dearest loves, and plays, and dreams, are to 
be found even in childish times. Poor little Red 
Riding Hood, with bright eyes glancing from her 
scarlet caplet, has been mourned by generations 
of cliildren ; but though they pity her, and la- 
ment her sad fate, she is no familiar playmate 
and companion. That terrible wolf with the fiery 
eyes, glaring through the brushwood, haunts 
them from the very beginning of the story ; it is 
too sad, too horrible, and tliey hastily turn the 
leaves and fly to other and better-loved compan- 
ions, with whose troubles they sympathize, for 
they are but passing woes, and they know that 
brighter times are in store. For the poor little 
maiden at the well, for dear Cinderella, for Roe- 
brother and little sister, wandering through the 
glades of the forest, and Snowwhite and her 
sylvan court of kindly woodland dwarfs — all 
these belong to the sweet and gentle region 
where beautiful calm suns shine after the storm, 
amid fair landscajjes, and gardens, and palaces. 
Even we elders sympathize with the children in 
this feeling, although we are more or less hard- 
ened by tiine, and have ourselves, wandering in 
the midway of life, met with wolves roving 
through the forest — wolves from whose cruel 
claws, alas ! no father's or mother's love can pro- 
tect us, and against whose wiles all warnings ex- 
cept those of our own experience are vain. And 
tliese wolves devour little boys as well as little 
girls and pats of butter. 

This is no place to write of some stories, so sad 
and so hopeless that they can scarcely be spoken ; 
although good old Perrault, in his simple way, to 
some poor Red Riding Hoods straying from the 
path utters a word of warning rhyme at the end 
of the old French edition : some stories are too 
sad, otliers too trifling. The sketch which I have 
in my mind is no terrible tragedy, but a silly lit- 
tle tale, so foolish and trivial that if it were not 
that it comes in its place with the others, I should 
scarcely attempt to repeat it. I met all the per- 
sonages by chance at Fontainebleau only the 
other day. 

The wolf was playing the fiddle under Little 
Red Jiiding Hood's window. Little Red Riding 
Hood was peeping from beliind her cotton cur- 



tains. Re'm}' (that was the wolf's Christian 
name) could see the little balls bobbing, and 
guessed tliat she was there. He played on loud- 
er than ever, dragging his bow with long sobbing 
chords across his fiddle-strings, and as he played, 
a fairy palace arose at his bidding, more beautiful 
than the real old palace across the Place that we 
had come to see. Tlie fairy palace arose story 
upon story, lovely to look upon, enchanted ; a 
palace of art, with galleries, and terraces, and 
belvederes, and orange-flowers scenting the air, 
and fragrant blossoms falling in snow-showers, 
and fountains of life murmuring and turning 
marble into gold as they flowed. Red Riding 
Hood from behind her cotton curtains, and Rem}', 
her cousin, outside in the court-yard, were the 
only two inhabitants of this wonderful building. 
They were alone in it together, far away in tliat 
world of which I have been speaking, at a long, 
long distance from the every-day all round about 
tliem, though the cook of the hotel was standing 
at his kitchen dooi*, and the stable-boy was grin- 
ning at Re'my's elbow, and H. and I, who had 
arrived only that evening, were sitting resting on 
the bench in front of the hotel, among the au- 
tumnal profusion of nasturtiums and marigolds 
with which tiie court-yard was planted. H. 
and I had come to see the palace, and to walk 
about in the stately old gardens, and to breathe 
a little quiet and silence after the noise of the 
machines thundering all day in the Great Ex- 
hibition of tlic Champ do Mars, the din of the 
cannons firing, of the carriages and multitudes 
rolling along the streets. 

Tiie Maynards, Red Riding Hood's parents, 
were not passers-by like ourselves, they were 
comfortably installed at the hotel for a month 
at a time, and came over once a year to see Mrs. 
Maynard's mother, an old lady who had lived at 
Fontainebleau as long as her two daughters could 
remember. This old lady's name was Madame 
Capuchon ; but her first husband had been an 
Englishman, like Mr. JMaynard, her son-in-law, 
who was also lier nephew by this first marriage. 
Both Madame Capuchon's daughters were mar- 
ried — Marthc, the eldest, to Henry Maynard, 
an English country gentleman ; Fe'licie, the 
youngest, to tlie Baron de la Louviere, who re- 
sided at Poictiers, and who was sous-prefet there. 
It is now forty years since Madame Capuchon 
first went to live at Fontainebleau, in the old 
house at the corner of tlie Rue de la Lampe. 
It has long been doomed to destruction, with its 
picturesque high roof, its narrow windows and 



176 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



balconies, and sunny old brick passages and stair- 
cases, with the round ivy oeil-de-boeuf windows. 
Staircases were piled up of biick in the time of 
the Louises, broad and wide, and easy to climb, 
and not of polished wood, like the slippery flights 
of to-day. However, the old house is in the 
way of a row of shops and a piojected cafe and 
newspaper office, so are the ivy-grown garden- 
walls, the acacia trees, the sun-dial, and the old 
stone seat. It is a pity that newer buildings 
can not sometimes be selected for destruction ; 
they might be rebuilt and redestroyed again and 
again, and people who care for such things might 
be left in peace a little longer to hold the dear 
old homes and traditions of tiieir youth. 

Madame Capuchon, however, is a kind and 
despotic old lady ; she has great influence and 
authority in the town, and during her life the 
old house is safe. It is now, as I have said, 
forty years since she first came to live there — 
a young widow for the second time, with two lit- 
tle daughters and a faithful old maid to be her 
only companions in her flight from the world 
wliere she hadknown great troubles and changes. 
Madame Capuchon and her children inhabited 
two upper stories of the old house. The rez de 
chaussee was partly a porter's lodge, partly a 
wai'chouse, and partly a little apartment which 
the proprietor reserved for his use. He died 
twice during Madame Capuchon's tenancy ; once 
he ventured to propose to her — but this was the 
former owner of tlie place, not the present pro- 
prietor, an old bachelor who preferred his- Paris 
cafe and his boulevard to the stately silence and 
basking life of Fontainebleau. 

This life suited Madame Capuchon, who, from 
sorrow at first and then from habit, continii d 
the same silent cloistered existence for years — 
years which went by and separated her quietly 
but completely from her old habits and friends 
and connections and long-past troubles, while 
the little girls grew up and the mother's beauty 
changed, faded quietly away in the twilight life 
she was leading. 

The proprietor who Iiad ventured to propose to 
the widow, and who had been refused with so 
much grace and decision that his admiration re- 
mained unaltered, was no more ; but sliortly 
before his death he had a second time accosted 
her with negotiations of marriage : not for him- 
self this time, but for a nephew of his, the Baron 
de la Louviere, who had seen tlie young ladies 
by cliance, heard much good of them fiom his 
uncle and their attached attendant Simonne, and 
learnt that their dot was ample and their con- 
nections respectable. Marthe, the eldest daugh- 
ter, was the least good-looking of the two, but to 
most people's mind far more charming than 
Felicie, the second. M. de la Louviere had at 
first a slight preference for Marthe, but learn- 
ing through his uncle that an alliance was con- 
templated between her and an English con- 
nection of her mother's, he announced himself 
equally anxious to obtain the hand of Fe'licie, 
the younger sister. After some hesitation, 
much addition of figures, subtraction, division, 



rule of three worked out, consultations and talk 
between Simonne and her mistress, and long dis- 
cussions with Henry Maynard himself, who was 
staying with a friend at Fontjiinebleau at the 
time, this favor was accorded to the baron. 

The young baroness went ofi" nothing loath : 
she was bored at home, she did not like the liab- 
it of severity and silence into which her mother 
had fallen. Siie was a slim, active, decided 
person, of calm aft'ections, but passionately fond 
of her own way, as indeed was Madame Capu- 
chon herself, for all her regrets for that past in 
which it must be confessed she had always done 
exactly as she liked, and completely ruled her 
two husbands. For all Madame Capuchon's 
blacks and drabs and seclusion, and shut shut- 
ters, and confessors, and shakes of the head, she 
had greatly cliecrcd up by this time : she had 
discovered in her health a delightful source of 
interest and amusement ; Fe'licie's marriage was 
as good as a play, as the saying goes ; and 
then came a catastrophe, still more exciting 
than Fe'licie's brilliant prospects, which occupied 
all the spare moments of the two years which suc- 
ceeded the youngest girl's departure from home. 

Madame Capuchon's nephew, Henry May- 
nard, was, as I have said, staying at Fontaine- 
bleau, with a friend, who was unfortunately a 
very good-looking young man of very good fam- 
ily, who liadcome to Fontainebleau to be out of 
harm's way, and to read French for some di])lo- 
matic appointment. Maynard used to talk to 
him about his devotion for his pretty cousin 
Marthe with the soft trill in her voice and the 
sweet quick eyes. Young Lord John, alas ! was 
easily converted to this creed — lie also took a 
desperate fancy to the pretty young lady ; and 
Madame Capuchon, whose repeated losses had 
not destroyed a certain ambition which had al- 
ways been in her nature, greatly encouraged the 
young man. And so one day poor Maynard 
was told that he must resign himself to his hard 
fate. Ho had never hoped much, for he knew 
well enough that his cousin, as he called her, did 
not care for him ; Marthe had always discour- 
aged him, although her mother would have scout- 
ed th^ notion that one of her daughters should 
resist any decree she might lay down, or venture 
to think for herself on such matters. 

Wlien Lord John proposed in the English 
fashion to Marthe one evening in the deep em- 
brasure of the drawing-room window, IMadame 
Capuchon was enchanted, although disapproving 
of the irregularity of the proceeding. She an- 
nounced her intention of settling upon her 
eldest daughter a sum so large and so much out 
of the proportion to the dot which she had ac- 
corded to Madame de la Louviere, that the bar- 
on hearing of it by chance through Monsieur Mi- 
cotton, the family solicitor, was furious, and an 
angry correspondence then commenced between 
him and his mother-in-law which lasted m.any 
years, and in which Madame Capuchon found 
another fresh interest to attach her to life, and 
an unfailing vent for much of her spare energy 
and excitement. 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 



177 



Henry Maynard went back to his father's 
house at Littleton on Thames, to console him- 
self as best he could among the punts and wa- 
ter-lilies. Lord John went back to England to 
pass his examination, and to gain his family's 
consent, without which he said he could not 
marry ; and IMarthe waite.d in the old house 
with Simonne and her mother, and that was 
the end of her story. 

Lord John didn't pass his examination, but 
interest was made for him, and he was given 
another chance, and he got the diplomatic ap- 
pointment all the same, and he went to Russia 
and was heard of no more at Fontainebleau. 
Madame Capuchon was naturally surprised at 
his silence ; while Marthe wondered and wea- 
ried, but spoke no word of the pain which con- 
sumed her. Her mother sat down and wrote 
to the duke, presented her compliments, begged 
to remind him of his son's engagement, and re- 
quested information of the young man's where- 
abouts and intentions. In the course of a week 
she received a few polite lines from the duchess, 
regretting that she could give Madame Capu- 
chon no information as to Lord John's where- 
abouts or intentions, informing her that she 
had made some mistake as to his engagement, 
and begging to decline any further correspond- 
ence on the subject, on paper so thick that Si- 
monne had to pay double postage for the epis- 
tle, and it would scarcely burn when Madame 
Capuchon flung it into the fire. The widow 
stamped her little foot, flashed her eyes, bit her 
lips, darted off her compliments to the duchess 
a second time, and begged to inform her that 
her son was a coward and a false gentleman, 
and that it was the Capuchon family that now 
begged to decline any further communication 
with people who held their word so cheaply. 
Naturally enough, no answer came to this, al- 
though Madame Capuchon expected one, and 
fumed and flashed and scolded for weeks after, 
during which poor Marthe still wondered and 
knew nothing. 

"Don't let us tell her any thing about it," 
Simonne had said when the first letter came. 
"Let her forget 'tout doucement;'" and Ma- 
dame Capuchon agreed. 

And so Marthe waited and forgot tout douce- 
ment, as Simonne proposed, for fifteen years, 
and the swans came sailing past her when she 
took her daily walk, and the leaves fell and 
grew again, and every night the shadow of the 
old lamp swinging in the street outside cast its 
quaint lines and glimmer across her dark leaf- 
shaded room, and the trees rustled when the 
wind blew, and her dreams were quieter and 
less vivid. 

Once Henry Maynard wrote, soon after Lord 
John's desertion, renewing his proposals, to 
Marthe herself, and not to his aunt ; but the 
letter came too soon. And, indeed, it was by 
Henry Maynard's letter that Marthe first real- 
ized for-certain what had happened. 

But it came too soon. She could not yet 
bear to hear her faithless lover blamed. Lord 
M 



John was a villain and unworthy of a regret, 
Henry said. Would she not consent to accept 
an honest man instead of a false one ? 

"No, no, no, a hundred times no," cried 
Marthe to herself, with something of her moth- 
er's spirit, and she nervously wrote her answer 
and slid out by herself and posted it. She nev- 
er dared tell Madame Capuchon what she had 
done. 

As time went on, one or two other "offers " 
were made to her ; but Marthe was so reluctant 
that, as they were not very good ones, jMadame 
Capuchon let them go by ; and then Marthe 
had a long illness, and then more time passed 
by. 

' ' What have we been about ?" said Madame 
Capuchon to her confidante one day as her 
daughter left the room. "Here she is an old 
maid, and it is all her.own obstinacy." 

At thirty-three Marthe was still unmarried : 
a gracious, faded woman, who had caught the 
trick of being sad ; although she had no real 
trouble, and had almost forgotten Lord John. 
But she had caught the trick of being sad, as I 
say, of flitting aimlessly across the room, of re- 
membering and remembering instead of living 
for to-day. 

Madame Capuchon was quite cheerful by 
this time ; besides her health, her angry corre- 
spondence, her confessor, her game of dominos, 
and her talks with Simonne, she had many lit- 
tle interests to fill up spare gaps and distract 
her when M. de la Louviere's demands were 
too much for her temper. There was her com- 
fortable hot and well-served little dinner to look 
forward to, her paper to read of a night, her 
chocolate in bed every morning, on a nice little 
tray with a pat of fresh butter and her nice lit- 
tle new roll from the English baker's. Ma- 
dame was friande, and Simonne's delight was to 
cater for her. But none of these distractions 
quite sufficed to give an interest to poor Mar- 
the's sad life. She was too old for the fan and 
excitement of youth, and too young for the 'lit- 
tle comforts, the resignations, and satisfactions 
of age. Simonne, the good old fat woman, 
used to think of her as a little girl, and try to 
devise new treats for her as she had done when 
Fe'licie and Marthe were children. Marthe 
would kiss her old nurse gratefully, and think, 
with a regretful sigh, how it was that she could 
no longer be made happy by a bunch of flow- 
ers, a hot buttered cake, a new trimming to her 
apron ; she would give the little cake away to 
the porter's grandchildren, put the flowers into 
water and leave tliem, fold up the apron, and, 
to Simonne, most terrible sign of all, forget it 
in the drawer. It was not natural, something 
must be wrong, thought the old woman. 

The old woman thought and thouglit, and 
poked about, and one day with her spectacles 
on her nose, deciphered a letter which was ly- 
ing on Madame Capuchon's table ; it was sign- 
ed Henry Maynard, and announced the writer's 
arrival at Paris. Next day, when Simonne was 
frizzling her mistress's white curls (they had 



ITS 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



come out of their seclusion for some years past), 
she suddenly asked what had become of Mon- 
sieur Maynard, madame's English nephew, who 
used to come so often before Mademoiselle Fe'- 
licie was married. 

" What is that to you ?" said the old lady. 
" He is at Paris. I heard from him yesterday." 

'' And why don't you ask him to come down 
and see you ?" said Simonne, frizzling away at 
the crisp silver locks. "It would cheer up 
mademoiselle to have some one to talk to. 
We don't want any one ; we have had our day, 
you and I; but mademoiselle, I confess I don't 
like to see her going on as she does." 

" Nor I !" said the old lady sharply. " She 
is no credit to me. One would almost think 
that she reproaches me for her existence, after 
all the sacrifices I have made." 

Simonne went on frizzling without stopping 
to inquire what these sacrifices might be. "I 
will order a fricandeau for to-morrow," she 
said; " niadame had better invito Monsieur 
to spend tlie day." 

" Simonne, you are an old fool," said her 
mistress. ' ' I have already written to my neph- 
ew to invite him to my house." 

Maynard came and partook of the fricandeau, 
and went for a little walk with Marthe, and he 
had a long talk wiih his aunt and old Simonne 
in the evening, and went away quite late — past 
ten o'clock it was. Maynard did not go back 
to Paris that night, but slept at the hotel, and 
early next morning there came a note address- 
ed to Marthe, in which the writer stated that 
he was still of the same mind in which he had 
been fifteen years before, and if she was of a 
different way of thinking, would she consent to 
accept him as her husband? 

And so it came about that long after the first 
best hopes of her youth were over, Maa'the con- 
sented to leave her own silent home for her hus- 
band's, a melancholy middle-aged bride, sad and 
friglitened at the tliought of the tempestuous 
. \v6rld into which she was being cast adrift, and 
less able, at thirty-three than at twenty, to hold 
her own against the kindly domineering old 
mother, who was much taken witli the idea of 
this marriage, and vowed that Marthe should 
go, and that no daughter of iiers should die an 
old maid if she could help it. Slie had been 
married twice herself; once at least, if possible, 
she was determined that both her daugliters 
should follow her example. Fe'licie's choice 
was not all that Madame Capuchon could have 
• wislied as fur as liberality and amiability of 
character were concerned ; but Fe'Iicie herself 
was happy, and indeed — so Madame Capuclion 
had much reason to suspect — abetted her hus- 
band in his grasping and extortionate demands. 
"And now Mnrthe's turn had come," said Ma- 
dame Capuchon complacently, sitting up among 
her pillows, sipping her chocolate; "she was 
the eldest, she should have married first; she 
had been a good and devoted daughter, she 
would make an excellent wife," cried the val- 
iant old lady. 



] When Marthe demurred : "Go, my child, go 
i in peace, only go, go, go ! Simonne is quite able 
to take care of me : do you think 1 want the 
1 sacrifice of your life ? For what should I keep 
you ? Can you curl me, can you jjlay at dom- 
inos ? You are much more necessary to your 
cousin tlian you are to me. He will be here 
directly — what a figure you have made of your- 
' self! Simonne, come here, give a coup de 
peigne to mademoiselle. There I hear the bell, 
Henry will be waiting." 

"He does not mind waiting, mamma," said 
' Marthe, siuiling sadly. " He has waited fifteen 
years already." 

"So much the worse for you both," cried the 
! old lady, angrily. " If I had only had my 
health, if my sjiirits had not been completely 
' crushed in those days, I never would have given 
1 in to such ridiculous ideas." 

Ridiculous ideas ! This was all the epitaph 
that was uttered by any one of them over the 
grave where poor Marthe had buried with much 
j pain and many tears the trouble of her early 
life. She herself had no other text for the 
wasted love of her youth. How angry she had 
been with her cousin Ileni-y when he warned 
her once, how she had hated him wlien he ask- 
ed her to marry him before, tacitly forcing upon 
! her the fact of his friend's infidelity, and now it 
was to Maynard, after all, that she was going to 
; be married ! After all that had passed, all the 
I varying fates, and loves, and hopes, and expec- 
: tations of her life. A sudden alarm came over 
1 the poor woman — was she to leave it, this still 
life, and the old house, and the tranquil shade 
and silence — and for what ? Ah, she could not 
go, she could not — she would stay where she 
was. Ah ! why would they not leave her 
alone ? 

Marthe went up to her room and cried, and 
bathed her eyes and cried again, and dabbed 
more water to dry her tears ; then she came 
quietly down the old brick stairs. She ])assed 
along the tiled gallery, her slim figure reflecting 
in the dim old looking-glass in the alcove at the 
end, with the cupids engraved upon its mouldy 
surface. She hesitated a moment, and then 
took courage and opened the dining-room door. 
There was nobody there. It was all empty, 
dim-pannelled, orderly, and its narrow tall win- 
dows reflecting the green without, and the gables 
and chimney-stacks piling under the blue. He 
was in the drawing-room then ; she had hoped I 
to find him here. Marthe sighed and then i* 
walked on across the polished floor, and so into 
the drawing-room. It was dimmer, more chill 
than the room in which their meals were served. 
Some one was standing waiting for her in one 
of the windows. Marthe remembered at that 
instant that it was Lord John's window, but 
she had little time for such reminiscences. A 
, burly figure turned at her entrance, and Hen- 
[ ry Maynard came to meet her, with one big 
hand out, and his broad good-natured face beam- 

I "Well, Minnie," said Henry Maynard, call- 



1 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 



170 



ing her by his old name for her, "you see I'm 
lieie again already." 

"Yes," she answered, standing before him, 
and tlien they were both silent : these two mid- 
dle-aged people waiting for the other to speak. 

"How is your mother?" Maynard asked. 
" I thought her very little changed, but you are 
not looking over well. However, time touches 
us all." 

Marthe drew herself up, with her eyes gleam- 
ing in her pale face, and then there was another 
silence. At last Marthe faltered out, gaining 
courage as she went on: — 

"I have been agitated, and a little disturbed. 
My mother is quite well, Cousin Henry," she 
said, and as she spoke her sad looks encounter- 
ed Maynard's good-natured twinkling glance. 
She blushed suddenly like a girl of fifteen. 
"You seem amused," she said, with some an- 
no3'ance. 

"Yes, dear," spoke Maynard, in his kind, 
manly tones. "I am amused that you and I, 
at our time of life, should be shilly-shallying 
and sentimentalizing, like a couple of chits who 
have all their life before them, and don't care 
whether they know or not what is coming next. 
I want to know very much — for I have little 
time to lose — what do you and your mother 
think of my letter this morning ?" 

This was coming to the point very abruptly, 
Mademoiselle Capuchon thought. 

"I am so taken by surprise," Marthe falter- 
ed, retreating a step or two, and nervously twist- 
ing her apron round about her fingers. " She 
wishes it. I — I hardly know. I have had so 
little time to . . . ." 

"My dear Marthe," said Maynard, impatient- 
ly, "I am not a romantic young man. I can 
make no professions and speeches. Y'ou must 
take me as I am, if I suit you. I won't say that 
after you sent me away I have never thought 
of any body but you during these past fifteen 
j-cars. But we might have been very happy to- 
gether all tliis long time, and yesterday when I 
saw how hipped you were looking, I determined 
to try and bring you away with me from this 
dismal place into the fresh air of Littleton, that 
is, if you liked to come with me of your own 
free will, and not only because my aunt desires 
it." And Henry Maynard drew a long breath, 
and put his hands in his pockets. 

This honest little speech was like a revelation 
to Marthe. She had come down feeling like a 
victim, meaning graciously, perhaps, in the end, 
to reward Maynard's constancy, taking it for 
granted that all this time he had never ceased 
being in love. She found that it was from old 
friendship and kindness alone that he had come 
to her again, not from sentiment, and yet this 
kindness and protection touched her more than 
any protestations of romantic affection. 

" But — but — should you really like it ?" she 
stammered, forgetting all her dreams, and com- 
ing to life as it were, at that instant. 

"Like it," he said with a smile. "You don't 
know how fond I mean to be of you, if you will 



come with me, dear Marthe. You shall make 
me as happy as you like, and yourself into the 
bargain. I don't think you will be sorry for it, 
and indeed you don't seem to have been doing 
much good here, all by yourself. Well, is it to 
be yes or no ?" And once more Maynard held 
out the broad brown hand. 

And Marthe said, "Yes," quite cheerfully, 
and put her hand into his. 

Marthe got to know her future husband bet- 
ter in these five minutes than in all the thirty 
years which had gone before. 

The Maynards are an old Catholic famil}', 
so there were no difficulties on the score of re- 
ligion. The little chapel in the big church was 
lighted up, the confessor performed the service. 
Madame Capuchon did not go, but Simonne 
was there, in robes of splendor, and so were the 
De la Louvieres. The baron and his mother- 
in-law had agreed to a temporary truce on this 
auspicious occasion. After the ceremony the 
new-married pair went back to a refection which 
the English baker and Simonne had concocted 
between them. The baron and baroness had 
brought their little son Re'my, to whom they 
were devoted, and he presented Marthe with a 
wedding present — a large porcelain vase, upon 
which was a painting of his mother's performance 
— in both his parents' name. Madame Capu- 
chon brought out a lovely pearl and emerald 
necklace, which Felicie had coveted for years 
past. 

"I must get it done up," the old lady said ; 
"you won't want it immediately, Marthe; you 
shall have it the first time you come to see me. 
Do not delay too long," added Madame Capu- 
chon, with a confidential shake of her head, to 
her son-in-law Maynard, as Marthe went away 
to change her dress. "You see my health is 
miserable. I am a perfect martyr. My doctor 
tells me my case is serious; not in so many 
words, but he assures me that he can not find 
out what ails me; and when doctors say that 
we all know what it means." 

Henry Maynard attempted to reassure Ma-v 
dame Capuchon, and to induce her to take a 
more hopeful view of her state ; but she grew 
quite angry, and snapped him up so short with 
her immediate prospect of dissolution, that he 
desisted in his well-meant endeavors, and the 
old lady continued more complacently : — 

" Do not be uneasy ; if any thing happens to 
me, Simonne will write directly to your address. 
Do not forget to leave it with her. And now 
go and fetch your wife, and let me have the 
pleasure of seeing her in her travelling-dress." 

It was a kind old lady, but there was a want 
in her love — so it seemed to her son-in-law as 
he obeyed her behest. 

Marthe had never quite known what real love 
was, he thought. Sentiment, yes, and too much 
of it, but not that best home -love— familiar, ten- 
der, unchanging. Her mother had not got it 
in her to give. Pe'licie de la Louviere was a 
hard and clear-headed woman ; all her affection 
was for Re'my, her little boy. Maynard dis- 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



liked her and the baron too, but they were all 
apparently very pood fiiends. 

Marthe came back to the salle to say good- 
bye, looking like herself again, Maynard thought, 
as his bride, in her rippling trailing gray silks, 
entered the room, witli Simonne's big bouquet 
of roses in her hand, and a pretty pink glow in 
her cheeks. 

She was duly embraced by Felicie and her 
husband, and then she knelt down to ask for her 
mother's blessing. "Bless you! bless you!" 
cried Madame Capuchon, affectionately push- 
ing her away. "There, you will disarrange 
yourself; take care, take care." Simonne sprang 
to the rescue, and Marthe found herself all at 
once embraced, stuck with pins, shaken ont, 
tucked in, flattened, folded, embraced again ; 
the handkerchief witli which she had ventured 
to wipe her tears was torn out of her hand, fold- 
ed, smoothed, and replaced. "Voila!" said 
Simonne, with two last loud kisses, "bon voy- 
age ; good luck go with you." And Maynard 
following after, somewhat to his confusion, re- 
ceived a couple of like salutations. 

Simonne's benediction followed Mrs. Maynard 
to England, where she went and took posses- 
sion of her new home. The neighbors called ; 
the drawing-room chintzes were renewed ; Mar- 
the Capuchon existed no longer ; no one would 
have recognized the listless ghost flitting here 
and there, and gazing from the windows of the 
old house in tlie Rue de la Lampe, in the busy 
and practical mistress of Henry Maynard's home. 
She had gained in composure and spirits and 
happiness since she came to England. Her 
house was admirably administered ; she wore 
handsome shining silk dresses and old lace ; and 
she rustled and commanded as efficiently as if 
she had been married for years. Simonne threw 
np her hands with delight at the transformation, 
the first time she saw Marthe after her marriage. 
"But you are a hundred times better-looking 
than Madame la Baronne," said the old 
"This is how I like to see you." 



II. 

More years went by, and Simonne's benedic- 
tion did not lose its virtue. 

The chief new blessing and happiness of all 
those blessings and happinesses which Simonne 
liad wished to Marthe Maynard was a blessing 
called Martlie Maynard, too ; a little girl adored 
by her mother. Marthe is considered a pretty 
name in French, and Maynard loved it for his 
wife's sake, and, as time went on, for her daugh- 
ter's as well. He called her Patty, however, to 
distinguish the two. Far more than the happi- 
ness some people find in the early spring, in the 
voices of birds, the delight of the morning hours, 
the presence of this little thing brought to her 
mother, this bright, honest, black and brown 
and white and coral maiden, with her sweet and 
willful ways and gay shrill warble. Every year 
the gay voice became more clear and decided. 



the ways more pretty and more willful. Mrs. 
Maynard used to devise pretty fanciful dresses 
for her Patty, and to tie bright ribbons in the 
child's crisp brown locks, and watch over her 
and pray for her from morning to night. Squire 
Maynard, who was a sensible man, used to be 
afraid lest so much affection should be bad for 
his little girl ; he tried to be stern now and then, 
and certainly succeeded in frightening Patty on 
such occasions. The truth was he loved his 
wife tenderly, and thought that Patty made a 
slave of her mother at times. It was a liappy 
bondage for them both. Marthe dreamt no 
more dreams now, and only entered that serene 
country of her youth by proxy, as it were, and 
to make plans for her Patty. The child grew 
up as the years went by, but if Marthe made 
plans for her they were very distant ones, and 
to the mother as impossible still as when Patty 
had been a little baby tumbling in her cradle. 
Even then Marthe had settled that Patty was 
not to wait for years as she had waited. What 
hero there was in the big world worthy of her 
darling, Mrs. Maynard did not know. The 
mother's heart sickened the first time she ever 
thought seriously of a vague possibility of which 
the very notion filled her with alarm. She had 
a presentiment the first time that she ever saw 
him. 

She was sitting alone in her bed-room, drowsi- 
ly stitching in the sun-light of the pleasant bow- 
window, listening to the sound of the clippers 
at work upon the ivy-hedge close by, and to 
the distant chime from the clock-tower of the 
town across the river. Just below her window 
spread the lawn where her husband's beloved 
flower-beds were flushing — scarlet and twink- 
ling violet, white and brilliant amber. In the 
field beyond the sloping lawn some children 
were pulling at the sweet wild summer garlands 
hanging in the hedges, and the Alderneys were 
crunching through the long damp grasses. Two 
pretty creatures had straggled down hill to the 
water-side, and were looking at their own brown 
eyes reflected in a chance clear pool in the mar- 
gin of the river. For the carpet of green and 
meadow verdure was falling over and lapping 
and draggling in the water in a fringe of glis- 
tening leaves and insects and weeds. There 
were white creamy meadow-sweets, great beds 
of purple flowers, bronzed water-docks arching 
and crisping their stately heads, weeds upspring- 
ing, golden slimy water-lilies floating upon their 
shining leaves. A water rat was starting out 
of his hole, a dragon-fly floating along the bank'. 
All this was at the foot of the sloping mead 
down by the bridge. It crossed the river to the 
little town of spires and red brick gables which 
had been built about two centuries ago, and all 
round about spread hills and lawns and sum- 
mer cornfields. Marthe Maynard had seen the 
cornfields ripen year after year : she loved the 
place for its own sake and for the sake of those 
who were very dear to her then ; but to-day, as 
she looked, she suddenly realized, poor soul, 
that a time might come when the heart and the 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 



181 



sweetest life of this little home-Eden might go 
from it. And as she looked tiirough her win- 
dow something like a chill came over her .- she 
dropped her work into her lap, and sat watch- 
ing two figures climbing up the field side by 
side ; coming through the buttercups, disap- 
pearing behind the hedge, reappearing at the 
bottom of the lawn, and then one figure darted 
forward, while the other lingered a little among 
the flower-beds ; and Mrs. Maynard got up res- 
olutely, with a pain and odd appi'chension in 
her heart, and went down to meet her daughter. 
The steeples of the little town whicli strike the 
hours, half-hours, and the very minutes as they 
pass, were striking four quarters, and then five 
again, as Mrs. Maynard came out upon her 
lawn, and at each stroke the poor mother's heart 
sank, and she turned a little sick at the possi- 
bility which had first occurred to her just now 
in her own room. It seemed to thrust itself 
again upon her as she stood ivaiting for the two 
young people — her own Patty and the strange 
young man coming through tlie flower-beds. 

There was a certain likeness to herself, odd, 
touching, bewildering, in the utter stranger, 
which said more plainly than any words, I be- 
long to you and yours ; I am no stranger though 
strange to j'ou. Patty had no need to explain, 
all breathless and excited and blushing, "Mam- 
ma, do you know who this is ? This is Re'my 
de la Louviere. Papa and I found him at the 
hotel ;" for the poor mother had already guessed 
that this was her sister's son. 

She could not help it. Her greeting was so 
stiff, her grasp so timid and fluttering, her 
words so guarded, that M. Re'my, who was used 
to be cordially welcomed and made much of, 
was surprised and disappointed, though he said 
nothing to show it. His manner froze, his 
mustaches seemed to curl more stiffly. He had 
expected to like his aunt from her letters and 
from what he had seen of her daughter, and here 
she was just the same as any body else, after 
all! 

Re'my introduced himself all the same. He 
had come to ma^ acquaintance with his Eng- 
lish relations, M told Mrs. Maynai'd. His 
mother "sent her love, and would they be kind 
to him ?" and Marthe, for all her presentiments, 
could not but relent towards the handsome 
young fellow ; she did not, however, ask him 
to stay, but this precaution was needless, for her 
husband had done so already. "We heard 
him asking for us at the inn," explained Patty. 
"Mamma, was not it fortunate? Papa was 
talking about the old brown mare, and I was 
just walking with Don in the court-yard, and 
then I heard my cousin saying, ' Where is Sun- 
nymede?' and I said, ' Oh, how delightful !' " 

"Hush, darling," said her mother. "Go 
and tell them to bring us some tea on the lawn." 

There was a shady corner not too far from 
the geraniums, where the table was set, and 
Re'my liked his aunt a little better, as she attend- 
ed to his wants, making a gentle clatter among 
the white cups, and serving out cream straw-, 



berries with liberal hand, unlike any thing he 
was used to at home. Mr. Maynard came in, 
hot, grizzled, and tired, and sank' into a gar- 
den-chair ; his wife's face brightened as he nod- 
ded to her ; the distant river was flashing and 
dazzling. Re'my, M-ith his long nose nnd bright 
eyes, sat watching the little home scene, and 
envying them somewhat the harmony and plenty. 
There was love in his home, it is true, and food 
too, but niggardly dealt out and only produced 
on occasions. If this was English life, Re'my 
thought it was very pleasant, and as he thought 
so, he saw the bright and splendid little figure 
of his cousin Patty advancing radiant across the 
lawn. For once Mrs. Maynard was almost an- 
gry with her daughter for looking so lovely ; her 
shrill sweet voice clamored for attention ; her 
bright head went bobbing over the cake and the 
strawberries ; her bright cheeks were glowing; 
her eyes seemed to dance, shine, speak, go to 
sleep, and wake again with a flash. Mrs. Maj-- 
nard had tied a bright ribbon in her daughter's 
hair that morning. She wore a white dress 
like her mother, but all fancifully and prettily 
cut. As he looked at her, the young man 
thought at first — unworthy simile — of coffee and 
cream and strawberries, in a dazzle of sunlight ; 
tlien he thought of a gypsy, and then of a 
nymph, shining, transfigured: a wood-nymph 
escaped from her tree in the forest, for a time 
consorting with mortals, and eating and joining 
in their sports, before she fled back to the ivy- 
grown trunk, whicli was her home, perhaps. 

Re'my had not lived all these years in the 
narrow home-school in which he had been bred 
without learning something of the lesson which 
was taught there : taught in the whole manner 
and being of the household, of its incomings and 
outgoings, of its interests and selfish preoccupa- 
tions. We are all sensible, coming from out- 
side into strange homes, of the different spirit 
or lares penates pervading each household. As 
surely as every tree in the forest has its sylph, 
so every house in the city must own its domestic 
deity — different in aspect and character, but 
ruling with irresistible decision — orderly and 
decorous, disorderly ; patient, impatient ; some 
stint and mean in contrivances and economies, 
others profuse and negl^cfrul ; others, again, 
poor, plain of necessity, but kindly and liberal. 
Some spirits keep tlie doors of their homes wide 
open, others ajar, others under lock and key, 
bolted, barred, with a little cautious peep-hole 
to reconnoitre from. As a rule, the very wide- 
open door often invites you to an indifferent en- 
tertainment going on within ; and people who 
are particular generally prefer those houses 
where the door is left, let us say, on the latch. 

Tiie household god that Re'my had been 
brought up to worship was a mean, self-seek- 
ing, cautious, and economical spirit. ]\Iadame 
de la Louviere's object and ambition in life had 
been to bring her servants down to the well- 
known straw a day ; to persuade her husband 
(no diflicult matter) to grasp at every chance 
and shadow of advantage along his jjath ; to 



182 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



educate her son to believe in the creed which 
she professed. Re'my must make a good mar- 
riage ; must keep up with desirable acquaint- 
ances : must not ncf^lect his well-to-do uncle, 
the LaLouvieres in Burgundy ; must occasion- 
ally visit his grandmother, Madame Capuchon, 
whose savings ought to be something considera- 
ble by this time. Madame do la Louviere had no 
idea how considerable these savings were until 
one day about a week before Rc'niy made his ap- 
pearance at Littleton, when the family lawyer. 
Monsieur Micotton, had come over to see her 
on business. This gras])ing clear-headed wom- 
an exercised a strange authority and fascination 
over the stupid little attorney— he did her busi- 
ness cheaper than for any other client ; he told 
her all sorts of secrets he had no right to com- 
municate — and now he let out to her that her 
mother had been making her will, and had left 
every thing that she had laid by in trust for lit- 
tle Marthe Maynard, her eldest daughter's only 
child. 

Madame de la Louviere's face pinched and 
wrinkled up into a sort of struggling knot of 
horror, severity, and indignation. 

"My good Monsieur Micotton, wliat news 
you give me ! What a culpable partiality ! 
AVliat an injustice; what a horror! Ah, tliat 
little intriguing English girl ! Did you not re- 
monstrate with, implore my unfortunate moth- 
er? But it must not be allowed. We must 
interfere." 

" Madame," said Micotton, respectfully, 
" your mother is, as you well know, a person 
of singular decision and promptness of charac- 
ter. She explained to me that when your sis- 
ter married, her husband (who apparently is 
rich) refused to accept more than a portion of 
the dot which came by right to madame your 
sister. M. de la Louviere unfortunately at that 
moment requested some advance, which appar- 
ently vexed madame your mother, and — " 

" Ah, I understand. It was a plot ; it was a 
conspiracy. I see it all," hissed the angry lady. 
"Ah, Monsieur Micotton, what a life of anxiety 
is that of a mother, devoted as I have' been, 
wounded cruelly to tlic heart; at every hour 
insulted, trampled on !' 

Madame de la TiC^viere was getting quite 
wild in her retrospect ; and M. Micotton, fear- 
ing a nervous attack, liastily gathered his papers 
together, stuffed them into his shabby bag, and 
making a great many little parting bows, that 
were intended to soothe and calm down his an- 
gry client, retreated towards the door. As he 
left he ran up against a tall, broad-shouldeied, 
good-looking young man, with a long nose, 
quick dark eyes, and a close - cropped dark 
beard, thick and soft and bright. Re'my had a 
look of his mother, who was a tall, straight, 
well-built woman ; but his forehead was broad- 
er, liis face softer, and his smile was charming. 
It was like the smile of his unknown aunt, far 
away in England, the enemy who liad, accord- 
ing to his motlier's account, defrauded and rob- 
bed him of his rights. 



" My son, my poor child!" said tiie baron- 
ess, excitedly, "be caliu, and come and help 
me to unravel this plot." 

"What is the matter?" Remy asked, in a 
a cheerful voice. lie, however, shrugged his 
shoulders rather dolefully when he heard the 
news, for to tell tiie truth he was in debt, and 
had been counting upon liis grandmotlier's leg- 
acy to help him out. " Hadn't we better make 
sure of her intentions before we remonstrate ?" 
he suggested, and tlie baron Mas accordingly 
sent for and desired to copy out another of 
those long letters of his wife's devising, which 
he signed with a flourish at the end. 

Madame Capuchon, appealed to, refused to 
give any information as to the final disposition 
of her property. She sliould leave it to any 
body she liked. She thought, considering her 
state of health, that the baron might have wait- 
ed in patience until she was gone, to satisfy his 
curiosity. She sent her love to her grandson, 
but was much displeased with both his parents. 

This was a terrible climax. Madame de la 
Louviere lay awake all one night. Next morn- 
ing she sent for Re'my and unfolded her plans 
to him. 

"You must go over to England and marry 
your cousin," she said, decisively ; "that is the 
only thing to be done." 

When Micotton came next day for further 
orders, Madame de la Louviere told him that 
Re'my was already gone. 

All his life long Re'my remembered this 
evening upon the river, sweeter, more balmy 
and wonderful tlian almost any evening he had 
ever spent in his life before. He had come with 
a set purpose, this wolf in sheep's clothing, to 
perform his part in a bargain, without thought 
of any thing but his own advantage. The idea 
of any objection being made never occurred to 
him. He was used to be made much of, as I 
have said ; he could please where he chose. 
Tiiis project accorded so entirely with his 
French ideas, and seemed so natural and sim- 
ple an arrangement, that he ^ver thought of 
doubting its success. For the nrst time now a 
possibility occurred to him of something higher, 
wiser, holier, than money-getting and grasping, 
in his schemes for the future and for his mar- 
ried life. He scarcely owned it to himself, but 
now that he had seen his cousin, lie uncon- 
sciously realized tliat if he had not already 
come with the set purpose of marrying her, he 
should undoubtedly have lost his heart to tliis 
winsome and brilliant little creature. All tliat 

j evening, as they slid through the water, paddling 

[ between the twilight fields, pushing through the 
beds of water-lilies, sometimes spurting swiftly 
through the rustling reeds, with the gorgeous 
banks on either side, and the sunset beyond 

! the hills, and the figures strolling tranquilly 
along the meadows, De la Louviere only felt 
himself drifting and drifting into a new and 
wonderful world. This time-wise young fellow 

I felt as if he was being washed white and happy 



i 



LITTLE KED RIDING HOOD. 



183 



and peaceful in the lovely purple river. Every 
thing was at once twilit, moonlit, and sunlit. 
The water flowed deep and clear. Patty, with 
a bulrush wand, sat at the stern, bending for- 
ward and talking happily ; the people on the 
sliore heard her sweet chatter. 

Once Fatty uttered a cry of alarm. "Don ! 
Where was Don ?" He had been very content- 
edly following them, trotting along tlie bank ; 
but now in the twilight they could not make 
him out. Patty called and her father hallooed, 
and Kemy pulled out a little silver wliistle he 
happened to have in his pocket and whistled 
shrilly. Old Don, who had been a little aliead, 
hearing all this hullabaloo, quietly plashed from 
the banks into the water, and came swimming 
up to the side of the boat, with his lionest old nose 
in the air, and his ears floating on the little 
ripples. Having satisfied them of iiis safety, 
and tried to wag liis tail in the water, he swam 
back to shore again, and the boat sped on its 
way home tlirough the twiliglit. 

" What a nice little wliistle !" said Patty. 

"Do take it," said Rc'my. "It is what I 
call my dogs at home with. Please take it. 
It will give me pleasure to think that any thing 
of mine is used by you." 

"Oh thank you," said Patty, as she put out 
her soft warm hand through the cool twilight, 
and took it from him. Maynard was looking 
out for the lock and paying no attention. Kemy 
felt as glad as if some great good-fortune had 
happened to him. 

The liglit was burning in the drawing-room 
wlien they got back. Mrs. IMaynard had or- 
dered some coffee to be ready for them, and 
was waiting with a somewhat anxious face for 
their return. 

" Oh, mamma, it has been so heavenly I" said 
Patty, once more sinking into her own corner 
by the window. 

And then the moon came brightly hanging 
in the sky, and a nightingale began to sing. 
Kemy had never been so happy in his life be- 
fore. He had forgotten all about his specula- 
tion, and was only thinking that his English 
cousin was more clnirming than all his grand- 
mother's money-bags piled in a heap. For that 
night he forgot his part of wolf altogether. 

In the morning Fatty took her cousin to the 
green-house, to the stable to see her pony ; she 
did the honors of Sunnymede with so much 
gayety and frankness tluit her mother had not 
the heart to put conscious thoughts into the 
child's head, and let her go her own way. Tiie 
two came back late to the early dinner; Mr. 
Maynard frowned, he disliked unpunctuality. 
Eemy was too happy to see darkness anywhere, 
or frowns in any body's face ; but then his eyes 
were dazzled. It was too good to last, he 
thought, and in truth a storm was rising even 
then. 

During dinner the post came in. Mrs. May- 
nard glanced at her correspondence, and then 
at her husband, as she put it into her pocket. 
"It is from my mother," she said. Re'my look- 



ed a little interested, but asked no questions, 
and went on talking and laughing with his 
cousin ; and after dinner, when Mrs. Maynard 
took her letter away to read in the study, the 
two young people went and sat upon the little 
terrace in front of the house. 

The letter was from Madame Capuchon, and 
Mrs. Maynard, having read it, put it into her 
husband's hands with a little exclamation of 
bewildered dismay. 

" What is the matter, my dear?" said Jlay- 
nard, looking up from his paper, which had com.e 
by the same afternoon post. 

" Only read this," she said ; " you will know 
best what to do. Oh Henry, he must go ; he 
sliould never have come." 

My heroine's mother was never very remarka- 
ble for spirit: her nearest approach to it was 
this first obstinate adherence to any thing which 
Henry might decree. Like otlier weak people 
she knew that if she once changed her mind she 
was lost, and accordingly she clung to it in the 
smallest decisions of life with an imploring per- 
sistence : poor Marthe, her decision was a straw 
in a great sea of unknown possibilities. Ma- 
dame Capuchon was a strong-minded woman, 
and not afraid to change her mind. 

"I have heard from Fe'licie," the old lady 
wrote ; " but she says nothing of a certain fine 
scheme which I hasten to acquaint you with. 
I learned it by chance the other day when Mi- 
cotton was with me consulting on tiie subject 
of my will, which it seems has given great of- 
fense to the De la Louvieres. Considering tlie 
precarious state of my health, they might surely 
have taken patience ; but I am now determined 
that they shall not benefit by one farthing that 
I possess. Micotton, at my desire, confessed 
that Ee'my has gone over to England for the 
express purpose of making advances to Marthe, 
your daughter, in hopes of eventually benefiting 
through me. He is a young man of indift'erent 
character, and he inherits, no doubt, the covetous 
and grasping spirit of his father." Mr. May- 
nard read no farther ; he flushed up and began 
to hiss out certain harmless oaths between his 
teeth. "Does that confounded young puppy 
think my Patty is to be disposed of like a bun- 
dle of hay ? Does he come here scheming af- 
ter that poor old woman's money ? Be hanged 
to the fellow ! he must be told to go about his 
business, Marthe, or the child may be taking a 
fancy to him. Confound the impertinent jacka- 
napes!" 

"But who is to tell him?" poor Marthe fal- 
tered, with one more dismal presentiment. 

"You, to be sure," said Maynard, clapping 
on his felt hat and marching right away off" the 
premises. 

In the mean time Remy and his cousin had 
been A-ery busy making Don jump backward 
and forward over the low parapet. They had 
a little disjointed conversation between the jump- 
ing. 

"What is your home like?" Patty asked 



184 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



" I wish it was more like yours," said Remy, 
with some expression ; "it would make me very 
happy to think tha,t, some day, it might become 
more so." 

The girl seemed almost to understand his 
meaning, for she blushed and laughed, and 
tossed her gloves up in the air and caught' 
them again. — " I love my home dearly," said 
she. 

At that moment the garden door opened, and 
Mr. Maynard appeared, but instead of coming 
towards them, he no sooner saw the two young 
folks than he began walking straight away in 
the direction of the outer gate, never turning 
his head or paying any attention to his daugh- 
ter's call. 

"Papa, papa!" cried Patty, springing up; 
but her father walked on, never heeding, and 
yet she was sure he must have heard. What 
could it mean ? She looked at Re'my, who was 
quite unconscious, twirling his mustache, and 
stirring up Don with the toe of his boot ; from 
Re'my she looked round to the library window, 
which was open wide, and where her mother 
was standing. 

"Do you want me ?" Patty cried, running up. 

"Ask your cousin to come and speak to me," 
said Mrs. Maynard, very gravely — "here, in 
papa's room." 

Patty was certain that something was wrong. 
She gave Re'my her mother's message witli a 
wistful glance, to see whether he did not suspect 
any trouble. The young man started up obedi- 
ently, and Patty waited outside in the sun, listen- 
ing to the voice? droning away witliin, watching 
the sparkle of the distant river, lazily following 
the flight of a big bumble-bee — wondering when 
their talk would be over and Re'my would come 
out to her again. From where she sat Patty 
could see the reflection of the two talkers in the 
big sloping looking-glass over tlie library table. 
Her mother was standing very dignified and state- 
ly, the young man had drawn himself straight up 
— so straight, so grim and fierce-looking, that 
Patty, as she looked, was surer and more sure 
that all was not right ; and she saw her mother 
give him a letter, and he seemed to push it away. 
And then it was not Remy but Mrs. Maynard 
who came out, looking very pale, and who said, 
"Patty, darling, I have been very much pained. 
Your cousin has behaved so strangely and un- 
kindly to you and me and to your father, that 
we can never forget or forgive it. Your father 
says so." 

Mrs. Maynard had tried to perform her task 
as gently as slie could. She told Re'my that 
English people had different views on many sub- 
jects from the French ; that she had learned his 
intentions from her mother, and thought it best 
to tell him plainly at once that she and Mr. 
Maynard could never consent to any such ar- 
rangement ; and under the circumstances — that 
— that— that— 

" You can never consent," repeated the young 
man, stepping forward and looking through her 
and round about her, seeing all her doubts, all 



her presentiments, reading the letter, overhear- 
ing her conversation with her husband all in one 
instant — so it seemed to poor Marthe. "And 
why not, pray?" 

"We can not argue the question," his aunt 
said, with some dignity. " You must not at- 
tempt to see my daughter any more." 

" You mean to say that you are turning me, 
your sister's son, out of your house," the indig- 
nant Remy said. " I own to all that you ac- 
cuse me of. I hoped to marry your daughter. 
I still hope it ; and I shall do so still," cried the 
young man. 

Re'my 's real genuine admiration for Patty 
stood him in little stead ; he was angry and 
lost his temper in his great disappointment and 
surprise. He behaved badly and foolishly. 

"I had not meant to turn you out of my 
house," said his aunt, gravely; "but for the 
present I think you had certainly better go. I 
can not expose my daughter to any agitation." 

"You have said more than enough," said 
Remy. " I am going this instant." And as 
he spoke he went striding out of the room. 

And so Re'my came back no more to sit with 
Patty under the ash-tree ; but her mother, with 
lier grave face, stood before her, and began tell- 
ing her this impossible, unbelievable fact — that 
he was young, that he had been to blame. 

"He unkind! he to blame! Oh mamma!" 
the girl said, in a voice of reproach. 

" He has been unkind and scheming, and he 
was rude to me, darling. I am sorry, but it is a 
fact." And Marthe, as she spoke, glanced a 
little anxiously at Patty, who had changed color, 
and then at De la Louviere himself, who was 
marching up, fierce still and pale, with bristling 
hair — his nose looking hooked and his lips part- 
ing in a sort of scornful way. He was carrying 
his cloak on his arm. 

"I have come to wish you good-bye, and to 
thank you for your English hospitality, ma- 
dame," said he, with a grand sweeping bow. 
" My cousin, have you not got a word for me ?" 

But Mrs. Maynard's eyes were upon her, and 
Patty, with a sudden shy stiffness for which siie 
hated herself then and for many and many a day 
and night after, said good-bye, looking down 
with a sinking heart, and Re'my marched away 
with rage and scorn in iiis. "They are all 
alike; not one bit better than myself. That little 
girl has neither kindness, nor feeling, nor fidelity 
in her. The money : they want to keep it for 
themselves — that is the meaning of all these 
fine speeches. I should like to get hold of her 
all the same, little stony-hearted flirt, just to 
spite them ; yes, and throw her over at the last 
moment, money and all — impertinent, ill-bred 
folks." And it happened that just at this min- 
ute Mr. Maynard was coming back thoughtfully 
the way he iiad gone, and the two men stopped 
face to face, one red, the other pale. Mrs. May- 
nard, seeing the meeting, came hastily up. 

" You will be glad to hear that I am going," 
said Re'my, defiantly looking at his uncle as he 
had done at liis aunt. 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 



18u 



"I am very glad to hear it," said Mr. May- 
nard. "I have no words to express the in- 
dignation which fills me at the thought of yonr 
making a speculation of my daughter's affec- 
tions, and the sooner you are gone the better." 

" Hush, dear," said Mrs. Maynard, laying her 
hand on her husband's arm, and looking at Pat- 
ty, who had followed her at a little distance. 
She had had her own say, and was beginning 
to think poor Rc'my hardly dealt with. 

" Let him say what he likes, madame, I don't 
care," De la Louviere said. "I am certainly 
going. You have failed, both of you, in kind- 
ness and hospitality; as for my cousin — "but, 
looking at Patty, he saw that her eyes were full 
of tears, and he stopped short. "I am all that 
you think," Remy went on. " I am in debt, I 
have lost money at gambling, I am a good-foi- 
nothing fellow. You might have made some- 
thing of me, all of you, but you are a sordid 
nation and don't understand the feelings of a 
French gentleman." 

With this bravado Re'my finally stalked off. 

" I think, perhaps, we were a little hasty," 
said the injudicious Marthe, while Patty sudden- 
ly burst out crying and ran away. 

Poor little Patty came down to tea that even- 
ing looking very pale, with pouting red lips, 
prettier than ever, her mother thought, as she 
silently gave the child her cupful of tea and cut 
her bread-and-butter, and put liberal helpings 
of jam and fruit before her, dainties that were 
served in the old cut-glass dishes that had spark- 
led on Maynard's grandmother's tea-table before. 
The old Queen Anne teapot, too, was an heir- 
loom, and the urn and the pretty straight spoons, 
and the hideous old china tea-set with the red 
and yellow flowers. There were other heir- 
looms in the family, and even Patty's bright 
eyes had been her great-grandmother's a centu- 
ry ago, as any body might sec who looked at the 
picture on the wall. Mr. Maynard was silent ; 
he had been angry with his wife for her gentle 
remonstrance, furious with the young man for 
the high hand in which he had carried matters, 
displeased with Patty for crying, and with him- 
self for not having foreseen the turn things 
were taking: and he now sat sulkily stirring his 
tea — sulky but relenting — and not indisposed for 
peace. After all, he had had his own way, and 
that is a wonderful calming process. Remy 
was gone ; nothing left of him but a silver whis- 
tle that Patty had put away in her work-table 
drawer. He was gone ; the echo of his last 
angry words were dinning in Maynard's eai's, 
while a psalm of relief was sounding in the 
mother's heart. Patty sulked like her father, 
and ate her bread and jam without speaking a 
word. There was no great harm done, Mrs. 
Maynard thought, as she kept her daughter sup- 
plied. She herself had been so disturbed and 
overcome by the stormy events of the day that 
she could not eat. She made the mistake that 
many elders have made before her: they mis- 
take physical for mental disturbance ; poor well- 
hacked bodies that have been jolted, shaken, 



patched and mended, and strained in half a doz- 
en places, are easily affected by the passing jars 
of the moment : they suffer and lose their appe- 
tite, and get aches directly which take away much 
sense of the mental inquietude which brought 
the disturbance about. Young healthy creatures 
like Patty can eat a good dinner and feel a keen 
pang and hide it, and chatter on scarcely con- 
scious of their own heroism. 

But as the days went by Mrs. Maynard sus- 
pected that all was not well with the child; 
there seemed to be a little effort and strain in 
the life which had seemed so easy and smooth 
before. More than once Mrs. Maynard noticed 
her daughter's eyes fixed upon her curiously and 
wistfully. One day the mother asked her why 
she looked at her so. Patty blushed, but did 
not answer. The truth was, it was the likeness 
to her cousin which she was studying. These 
blushes and silence made Marthe Maynard a lit- 
tle uneasy. 

But more days passed and the mother's anx- 
ious heart was relieved, Patty had brightened 
up again, and looked like herself, coming and go- 
ing in her Undine-like way, bringing home long 
wreaths of iv}', birds'-eggs, sylvan treasures. She 
was out in all weathers. Her locks only curled 
the crisper for the falling rain, and her cheeks 
only brightened when the damp rose up from 
the river. The time came for their annual visit 
to Madame de Capuchon. Pattv, out in her 
woods and meadows, wondered and wondered 
what might come of it ; but Poictiers is a long 
way from Fontainebleau, "fortunately," " alas !" 
thought the mother — in her room, packing Pat- 
ty's treasures — and the daughter out in the open 
field in the same breath. They were so used 
to one another, these two, that some sort of mag- 
netic current ])assed between them at times, and 
certainly Marthe never thought of Rc'my de la 
Louviere that Patty did not think of him too. 



IIL 

Old Madame de Capuchon was delighted 
with her granddaughter, and the improvement 
she found in her since the year before. She 
made more of her than she had ever done of 
Marthe her daughter. All manner of relics were 
produced out of the old lady's ancient stores to 
adorn Miss Patty's crisp locks and little round 
white throat and wrists ; small medallions were 
hung round her neck, brooches and laces pinned 
on, ribbons tied and muslins measured, while 
Simonne tried her hand once again at cake- 
making. Patty, in return, brought a great rush 
of youth, and liberty, and sunshine into the old 
closed house, where she was spoiled, worshipped, 
petted, tb her heart's content. Her mother's 
tender speechless love seemed dimmed and put 
out by this chorus of compliments and admiia- 
tion. "Take care of your complexion ; what- 
ever you do, take care of your com])lcxion," her 
grandmother was always saying. Madame Capu- 
chon actually sent for the first modiste in the 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



town, ex])laineJ wliat she wanted, and ordered 
a scarlet " capeline," — such as kdies wear by the 
seaside — a pretty frilled, quilted, laced, and 
braided scarlet hood, close round the cheeks 
and tied up to the chin, to protect her grand- 
daugliter's youthful bloom from the scorching 
rays of the sun. She need not have been so 
anxious. Patty's roses were of a damask that 
docs not fade in the sun's rays. 

Squire Maynard, who was a sensible man, 
did not approve of all this to-do, and thought 
it wiis all very bad for Miss Patty, "whose lit- 
tle head was quite full enough of nonsense al- 
ready," he said. One day Patty came home 
with the celebrated pearls round her neck that 
Madame de la Louviore had tried so hard to 
get. Madame Capuchon forgot that she had 
already given them to her eldest daugiiter, but 
Mrs. Maynard herself was the last to have re- 
membered this, and it was her husband who said 
to her, with a shrug of the shoulders: — 

"It is all very well, but they are yours, my 
dear, and your mother has no more right to 
tliem than Patty has." 

Patty pouted, flashed, tossed her little head, 
flung her arms round her niotlicr's neck, all in 
an instant. She was a tender-hearted little 
person, heedless, impulsive, both for the best 
and the worst, as her poor mother knew to her 
cost. The squire thought his wife spoiled her 
daughter, and occasionally tried a course of ju- 
ilicious severity, and, as I have already said, he 
had only succeeded in frightening the child 
more than lie had any idea of. 

" Take them, dear mamma," said Patty, pull- 
ing ofi" her necklace. " I didn't know any thing 
about tliem. Grandmamma tied them on." 

"Darling," said her mother, "you are my 
jewel. I don't want these pearls : and if they 
are mine I give them to you." 

Two pearl drops were in Mrs. Maynard's 
eyes as she spoke. She was thinking of her 
long lonely days, and of the treasures wliich | 
were now hers. Looking at this bright face in ' 
its scarlet hood — tliis gay, youthful presence: 
standing before them all undimmed, in the ' 
splendor of its confidence and briglitness — it ! 
seemed to Mrs. Maynard as if now, in her old 
age, now that she had even forgotten her long-« 
ings for them, all the good things were granted 
to iier, the want of which had made her early | 
life so sad. It was like a miracle, that at fifty i 
.all this should come to her. Her meek glad 
eyes sought her husband's. He was frowning, 
and eying his little girl uneasily. I 

"I don't like that red bonnet of yours," said 
he. "It is too conspicuous. You can't walk 
about Paris in that." 

"Paris!" shrieked Patty. "Am I going to 
Paris, pa])a ?" • 

"You must take great care of your father, 
Patty," said her mother. "I shall stay here, 
with my mother until you come back." j 

I am not going to describe Patty's delights ' 
and surprise. Every body has seen through her 
eyes, at one time or another, and knows what it 



is to be sixteen, and transported into a dazzling 
ringing world of sounds, and sights, and tastes, 
and revelations. The good father took his 
daughter to dine off delicious little dishes witli 
sauces, with white bread and butter to eat be- 
tween the courses; he hired little carriages, in 
which they sped through the blazing streets, and 
were set down at the doors of museums and 
palaces, and the gates of cool gardens where 
fountains murmured and music played ; he 
had some friends in Paris — a good-natured old 
couple, who volunteered to take charge of his 
girl ; but for that whole, happy, unspeakable 
week he rarely left her. One night he took 
her to the play — a grand fairy piece — where a 
fustian peasant maiden was turned into a satin 
princess in a flash of music and electric light. 
Patty took her fiither's arm, and came away 
with the crowd, with the vision of those waving 
halos of bliss opening and shining with golden 
rain and silver-garbed nymphs, and shrieks of 
music and admiration, all singing and turning 
before her. The satin princess was already re- 
transformed, but that was no affair of Patty's. 
Some one in the crowd, better used to plays and 
fairy pieces, coming along behind the father and 
daughter, thought that by far the prettiest sight 
he had seen that night was this lovely eager 
little face before him, and that those two dark 
eyes — now flashing, now silent — were the most 
beautiful illuminations he had witnessed for 
many a day. The bright eyes never discovered 
who it was behind her. Need I say that it was 
Ee'my ? wiio, after looking for them for a couple 
of days in all the most likely places, took a tick- 
et for Fontainebleau on the third evening after 
he had seen them. What fascination was it 
that attracted him ? He was hurt and angry 
with her, he loved and he longed to see her. 
And then again vague thoughts of revenge cross- 
ed his mind ; he would see her and win her af- 
fections, and then turn away and leave her, and 
pay back the affront which had been put upon 
liim. M. Re'my, curling his mustaches in the 
railway-carriage, and meditating this admirable 
scheme, was no very pleasant object to contem- 
plate. 

"That gentleman in the corner looks ready 
to cat us all up," Avhispered a little bride to her 
husband. 

Meanwhile Patty had been going on her way 
very placidly all these three days, running hith- 
er and thither, driving in the forest, dining with 
her grandmother, coming home at night under 
the stars. The little red hood was well known 
in the place. Sometimes escorted by Betty, an 
English maid who had come over with the fam- 
ily ; oftener Mr. Maynard himself walked witli 
his daughter. Fontainebleau was not Little- 
ton, and he did not like her going about alone, 
although Patty used to pout and rebel at these 
precautions. Mrs. Maynard herself rarely walk- 
ed ; she used to drive over to her mother's of 
an afternoon, and her husband and daughter 
would follow her later; and Simonne, radiant, 
would then sujieriutend the preparation of fri- 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. 



187 



candeaus and galettes, such as she loved to set 
before them, and cream-tarts and chicken and 
vol au vent. There was no end to her resources. 
And yet, to hear Madame Capuchon, one would 
. tiiink that she led the life of an invalid ascetic 
starving on a desert island. " These railways 
carry away every thing," the old lady would say ; 
"they leave one nothing. When I say that I 
have dined, it is for the sake of saying so. You 
know I am not particular, but they leave us 
nothing, absolutely nothing, to eat." On tliis 
especial occasion the old lady was in a state of 
pathetic indignation over M. Bougu, her butter- 
man, who had been taken up for false practices. 
Simonne joined in — "I went in for the tray," 
she said. "Oh, I saw at once, by tlie expres- 
sion of madame's face, that there \vas something 
wrong. It was lard that he had mixed witli his 
butter. As it is, I do not know where to go to 
find her any thing fit to eat. They keep cows 
at the hotel," she added, turning to Marthe as 
she set down a great dish full of cream-cakes 
upon the table. "Perhaps they would supply 
us, if you asked them." 

Mrs. Maynard undertook the negotiation ; 
and next day she called Patty to her into the 
little drawing-room, and gave the child a piece 
of honeycomb and a little pat in a vine-leaf, 
to take to Madame Capuchon, as a sample. 
"Give her my love, and tell her she can have 
as much more as she likes ; and call Betty to 
go with you," said Mrs. Maynard. "Betty, 
Betty, Betty, Betty, come directly," cried Patty, 
outside the door, dancing off delighted w ith her 
commission. Betty came directly ; but there 
are two roads to Madame Capuchon's, one by 
the street and one by the park. Patty certain- 
ly waited for three minutes at the park gate, but 
Betty was trudging down the town, and gaping 
into all the shops as she went along, wliile her 
young mistress, who had soon lost patience, was 
hurrying along the avenues, delighted to be free 
— hurrying and then stopping, as thef;incy took 
her. The sun shone, the golden water quiver- 
ed, tlie swans came sailing by. It was all Patty 
could do not to sing rigiit out and dance to her 
own singing. By degrees her spirits quieted 

down a little 

****** 

Patty was standing leaning over the stone 
parapet at the end of the terrace, and looking 
deep down into the water which laps against it 
A shoal of carp was passing through the clear 
cool depths. Solemn patriarchs, bald, dim with 
age, bleared and faded and overgrown with 
strange mosses and lichens, terrible with their 
chill life of centuries, solemnly sliding, followed 
by their court through the clear cool waters 
where they had floated for ages past. Uncon- 
scious, living, indifferent while the generations 
were succeeding one another, and angry mul- 
titudes surging and yelling while kingdoms 
changed hands; while the gaycourt ladies, scat- 
tering crumbs with their dainty fingers, were 
hf)Oted by the hags and furies of the Revolution, 
shrieking for blood, and for bread for their chil- 



dren ; — the carps may have dived for safety into 
the cool depths of the basins, while these awful 
ghosts of want and madness clamored round the 
doors of the palace — ghosts that have not pass- 
ed away forever, alas! with the powders and 
patches, and the stately well-bred follies of the 
court of Dives. After these times a new order 
of things was established, and the carps may 
have seen a new race of spirits in the quaint 
garb and odd affectation of a bygone age, of 
senates and consuls and a dead Roman people ; 
and then an Emperor, broken-hearted, signed 
away an empire, and a Waterloo was fought ; 
and to-day began to dawn, and the sun shone 
for a while upon the kingly dignity of Orleans ; 
and then upon a second empire, with flags and 
many eagles and bees to decorate the whole, 
and trumpets blowing, and looms at work, and 
a temple raised to the new goddess of industry. 

What did it all matter to the old gray carp? 
They had been fed by kings and by emperors; 
and now they were snatching as eagerly at the 
crumbs which Patty Maynard was dropping one 
by one into the water, and which floated pleas- 
antly into their great open maws. Tlie little 
bits of bread tasted much alike, from wherever 
they came. If Patty had been used toputsuch 
vague speculations into words, she might have 
wondered sometimes whether we human carps, 
snatching at the crumbs which fall upon tiie wa- 
ters of life, are not also greedy and unconscious 
of the wonders and changes that may be going 
on close at hand in another element to which 
we do not btlong, but at which we guess now 
and then. 

A crumb fell to little Patty herself, just then 
gazing down deep iiy;o the water. Tiie sun be- 
gan to shine hot and yet more hot, and the child 
put up her big white umbrella, for her hood did 
not shade her eyes. A great magnificent stream 
of light illumined the grand old place, and the 
waving tree-tops, and the still, currentless lake. 
Tlie fish floated on basking, tiie birds in the trees 
seemed suddenly silenced by the intense beauti- 
ful radiance, the old palace courts gleamed 
bravely, the shadows shrank and blackened ; hot, 
sweet, and silent tiie light streamed upon the 
great green arches and courts and colonnades of 
the palace of garden without, upon the arches 
and courts and colonnades of the palace of mar- 
ble within, with its quaint eaves and mullions, 
its lilies of France and D's and H's still in- 
twined, though D and 11 had bcei) parted for 
three centuries and more. It was so sweet and 
so serene that Patty began to think of her cous- 
in. She could not have told you why fine days 
put her in mind of him, and of that liappy hour 
in the boat. She pulled the little silver ^vhistle 
out of her pocket, and to-day slie could not help 
it ; instead of pushing the thought of Rcmy away, 
as she had done valiantly of late, the silly child 
turned the whistle in her hands round and round 
again. It gleamed in the sun like a whistle of 
fire ; and then slowly she put it to her lips. 
Should she frighten the carp ? Patty wonder- 
ed ; and as she blew a very sweet long note upon 



188 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



the shrill gleaming toy, it echoed oddly in the 
stillness, and across the water. The carp did 
not seem to hear it ; but Patty stopped short, 
frightened, ashamed, with burning blushes, for, 
looking up at the sound of a footstep striking 
across the stone terrace, she saw her cousin 
coming towards her. 

To people who are in love each meeting is a 
new miracle. This was an odd chance certain- 
ly, a quaint freak of fortune. The child thought 
it was some incantation that she had uncon- 
sciously performed ; she sprang back, her dark 
eyes flashed, the silver whistle fell to the ground 
and went rolling and rolling and bobbing across 
the stones to tlie young man's feet. 

He picked it up and came forward with an 
amused and lover-like smile, holding it out in 
iiis hand. " I have only just heard you were 
here," he said ; " I came to see my grandmoth- 
er last night, from Paris. My dear cousin, 
what a delightful chance ! Are not you a little 
bit glad to see me ?" said .the young man, ro- 
mantically. It was a shame to play off his airs 
and graces upon such a simple downright soul 
as Marthe Maynard. Some one should have 
boxed his ears as he stood there, smiling, hand- 
some, irresistible, trying to make a sentimental 
scene out of a chance meeting. Poor little Pat- 
ty, with all her courage and simpleness, was no 
match for him at first ; she looked up at his face 
wistfully and then turned away, for one burning 
blush succeeded to another, and then she took 
courage again. "Of course I am glad to see 
you. Cousin Re'my," said she, briglrtly, and she 
held out her little brown hand and put it frank- 
ly into his. "It is the greatest pleasure and 
delight to me, above all now, when I had given 
up all hopes forever; but its no use," said Pat- 
ty, with a sigh, "for I know I mustn't talk to 
you, they wouldn't like it. I must never whis- 
tle again upon the little whistle, for fear you 
should appear," she said, with a sigh. 

This was no cold-hearted maiden. Re'my for- 
got his vague schemes of revenge and desertion 
the moment he heard the sound of her dear lit- 
tle voice. • ' They wouldn't like it, " said Re'my, 
reddening, " and I have been longing and wea- 
rying to see you again, Patty. What do you 
suppose I have come here for? — Patty, Patty, 
confess that you were thinking of me when you 
whistled," and as he said this, the wolf's whole 
heart melted. " Do you know how often I have 
thought of you since I was cruelly driven away 
from your house?" 

Two great, ashamed, vexed, sorrowful tears 
started into Marthe's eyes as she turned away 
her head and pulled away her hand. 

"Oh* Re'my, indeed, indeed there must have 
been some reason, some mistake : dear papa, if 
you knew how he loves me and mamma, and, oh, 
how miserable it made me." 

" I dare say there was some mistake, since 
you say so," said the wily wolf. " Patty, only 
say you love me a little, and I will forgive every 
thing and any thing." 

" 1 mustn't let any one talk about forgiving 



\ theiii,^' said the girl. "I would love you a 
great deal, if I might," she added, with another 
I sigh. " I do love you, only I try not to, and I 
think — I am sure I shall get over it in time, if I 
can only be brave." 

This was such an astounding confession that 
De la Louviere hardly knew how to take it ; 
touched and amused and amazed, he stood there, 
looking at the honest little sweet face. Patty's 
confession was a very honest one. The girl 
knew that it was not to be ; she was loyal to her 
father, and. above all, to that tender wistful 
mother. Filial devotion seemed, like the bright 
eyes and silver teapot, to be an inheritance in 
her family. She did not deceive herself; she 
knew that she loved her cousin with something 
more than cousinly affection, but she also be- 
lieved that it was a fancy which could be con- 
quered. And she set her teeth and looked quite 
fierce at Re'my ; and then she melted again, 
and said in her childish way: "You never 
told me you would come if I blew upon the 
whistle." 

Do her harm — wound her — punish her pa- 
rents by stabbing her tender little heart ! Re'my 
said to himself that he had rather cut off his 
mustaches. 

There was something loyal, honest, and ten- 
der in the little thing, that touched him inex- 
pressiljly. He suddenly began to tell himself 
that he agreed with his nncle, that to try to 
marry Patty for money's sake had been a shame 
and a sin. He had been a fool and a madman, 
and blind and deaf. Remy de la Louviere was 
only half a wolf, after all — a sheep in wolf's 
clothing. He had worn the skin so long that 
he had begun to think it was his very own, and 
he was perfectly amazed and surprised to find 
such a soft, tender place beneath it. 

It was with quite a different look and tone 
from the romantic, impassioned, corsair man- 
ner in which he had begun, that he said very 
gently : " Dear Patty, don't try too hard not 
to like me. I can not help hoping that all will 
be well. You will hope, too, will you not?" 

" Yes, indeed, I will," said Patty ; " and 
now, Re'my, you must go : I have talked to you 
long enough. See, this is the back gate and 
the way to the Rue de la Lampe." For they 
had been walking on all this time and following 
the course of the avenue. One or two people 
passing by looked kindly at the handsome young 
couple strolling in the sunshine; a man in a 
blouse, wheeling a hand-truck, looked over his 
shoulder a second time as he turned down the 
turning to the Rue de la Lampe. Patty did 
not see him, she was absorbed in one great reso- 
lution. She must go now, and say good-bye to 
her cousin. 

"Come a little way farther with me," said 
Re'my, "just a little way under the trees. 
Patty, I have a confession to make to you. 
You will hate me, perhaps, and yet I can not 
help telling you." 

" Oh, indeed I must not come now," Patty 
said. " Good-bye, good-bye." 



LITTLE EED BIDING HOOD. 



189 



*' You won't listen to me, then ?" said the 
young man, so sadly that she had not the coui-- 
age to leave him, and she turned at last, and 
walked a few steps. 

"Will you let me carry your basket?" said 
her cousin. "Who are you taking this to ?" 

"It is for my grandmother," said the girl, 
resisting. "Eemy, hare you really any thing 
to say ?" 

They had come to the end of the park, where 
its gates lead into the forest; one road led to 
the Rue de la Lampe, the other into the great 
waving world of trees. It was a lovely sum- 
mer's afternoon. There was a host in the air, 
delighting and basking i^ tlie golden comfort ; 
butterflies, midges, flights of birds from tlie for- 
est were passing. It was pleasant to exist in 
such a place and hour, to walk by lie'my on the 
soft springing turf, and to listen to the sound of 
his voice under the shade of the overarching 
boughs. 

" Patty, do you know I did want to marry 
you for your money ?" Ile'my said at last. " I 
love you truly ; but I have not loved you al- 
ways as I ought to have done — as I do now. 
You scorn me, you can not forgive me ?" he add- 
ed, as the girl stopped short. " You will never 
trust me again." 

" Oh, Re'my, how could you .... Oh, 
yes, indeed, indeed I do forgive you. I do trust 
you," she added quickly, saying any thing to 
comfort and cheer him when he looked so un- 
happy. Every moment took them farther and 
farther on. The little person with the pretty 
red hood and bright eyes and tlie little basket 
had almost forgotten her commission, her con- 
science, her grandmother, and all the other du- 
ties of life. Re'my, too, had forgotten every 
thing but the bright sweet little face, the red 
hood, and the little hand holding the basket, 
when they came to a dark, inclosed halting- 
place at the end of the avenue, from whence a 
few rocky steps led out upon a sudden hillside, 
which looked out into the open world. It was 
a lovely surprising sight, a burst of open coun- 
try, a great purple amphitheatre of rocks shin- 
ing and hills spreading to meet the skies, clefts 
and sudden gleams, and a wide distant horizon 
of waving forest fringing the valley. Clouds 
were drifting and tints changing, the heather 
springing between the rocks at their feet, and 
the thousands of tree-tops swaying like a ripple 
on a sea. 

Something in the great wide freshness of the 
place brought Patty to herself again. 

" How lovely it is !" she said. " Oh, Remy, 
why did you let me come ? Oh, I oughtn't to 
have come." 

Re'my tried to comfort her. "We have not 
been very long," he said. "We will take the 
short cut through the trees, and you shall tell 
your mother all about it. There's no more 
reason why we shouldn't walk together now 
than when we were at Littleton." 

As he was speaking he was leading the way 
through tlie bnislnvood, and they got into a 



cross avenue leading back to the carriage- 
road. 

"I shall come to Madame Capuchon's, too, 
since you are going," said Re'my, making a 
grand resolution. "I think perhaps she will 
help us. She is bound to, since she did all the 
mischief;" and then he went on a few steps, 
holding back the trees that grew in Patty's way. 
A little field-mouse peeped at them and ran 
away, a lightning sheet of light flashed through 
the green and changing leaves, little blue flow- 
ers were twinkling on the mosses under the 
trees, dried blossoms were falling, and cones 
and dead leaves and aromatic twigs and shoots. 

"Is this the way?" said Patty, suddenly 
stopping short, and looking about her. ' ' Re'my, 
look at those arrows cut in the trees ; they are 
not pointing to the road we have come. Oh 
Re'my, do not lose the way," cried Patty, in a 
sudden fright. 

" Don't be afraid," Remy answered, laugh- 
ing, and hurrying on before her ; and then he 
stopped short, and began to pull at his mustache, 
looking first in one direction and then in anoth- 
er. " Do you think they would be anxious if 
you were a little late?" he said. 

"Anxious," cried Patty. "Mamma would 
die ; she could not bear it. Oh Re'my, Remy, 
what shall I do ?" She flushed up, and almost 
began to cry. " Oh, find the way, please. Do 



you see any more arrows 



Here is one ; come. 



come. ' 

Patty turned, and began to retrace her steps, 
hurrying along in a fever of terror and remorse. 
The wood - pigeons cooed overhead, the long 
lines of distant trees were mingling and twisting* 
in a sort of dance, as she flew along. 

" Wait for me, Patty," cried Re'my. " Here 
is some one to ask." And as he spoke he point- 
ed to an old woman coming along one of the 
narrow cross pathways, carrying a tray of sweet- 
meats and a great jar of lemonade. 

" Fontainebleau, my little gentleman?" said 
the old woman. "You are turning your back 
upon it. The arrows point away from Fontaine- 
bleau and not toward the town. Do you know 
the big cross near the gate ? Well>it is just at 
the end of that long avenue. Wait, wait, my 
little gentleman. Won't you buy a sweet sugar- 
stick for the pretty little lady in tlie redwood ? 
Believe me, she is fond of sugar-sticks. It is 
not the first time that she has bought some of 
mine." 

But Remy knew that Patty was in no mood 
for barley-sugar, and he went off" to cheer up his 
cousin with the good news. The old woman 
hobbled off", grumbling. 

It was getting later by this time. The shad- 
ows were changing, and a western light was be- 
ginning to glow upon the many stems and quiv- 
ering branches of the great waving forest. Ev- 
ery thing glowed in unwearied change and 
beauty, but they had admired enough. A bird 
was singing high above over their heads, they 
walked on quickly in silence for half an hour, a 
long, interminable hnlf-hour, and at the end of 



190 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



the avenue — as the old woman had told them — 
they found a wide stony ascending road, with 
the dark murmuring fringe of the woods on ei- 
ther side, and a great cross at the summit of the 
ascent. Here Fatty sank down for a minute, 
almost falling upon the step, and feeling safe. 
This gate was close to the Kue de la Lampe. 

" Now go," she said to her cousin. '• Go on 
first, and I will follow, dear Re'my. I don't 
want to be seen with you any more. People 
know me and my red hood." 

De la Louviere could only hope that Patty 
had not already been recognized. 

All the same he utterly refused to leave her 
nntil they reached the gates of the forest ; then 
he took the short way to the Rue de la Lampe, 
and Patty followed slowly. She had had a 
shock, she wanted to be calm before she saw 
lier grandmother. Her heart was beating still, 
slie was tired and sorry. Patty's conscience 
was not easy — she felt she iiad done wrong, and 
yet — and yet — with the world of love in her 
heart it seemed as if nothing could be wrong 
and nobody angry or anxious. 

Mrs. Maynard herself had felt something of 
the sort that afternoon after the little girl had 
left her. The mother watched her across the 
courtyard, and then sat down as usual to her 
work. Her eyes filled up with gra-teful tears as 
she bent over her sewing ; they often did when 
Henry spoke a kind word or Patty looked spe- 
cially happy. Yes, it was a miracle that at fifty 
all this should come to her, thought Marthc 
Maynard — brilliant beauty and courage and 
' happiness, and tlie delight of youth and of early 
hopes unrepressed. It was like a miracle that 
all this had come to her in a dearer and happi- 
er form than if it had been given to herself. 
Marthe wondered whether all her share had been 
reserved for her darling in some mysterious fash- 
ion, and so she went on stitching her thoughts 
to her canvas, as people do : peaceful, tranquil, 
happy thoughts they were, as she sat waiting for 
her husband's return. An hour or two went 
by, people came and went in the court-yard be- 
low, the little diligence rattled off to the rail- 
way; at last, thinking she heard Henry's voice, 
Martlie leaned out of the window and saw him 
.spealflng to an old woman with a basket of 
sweetmeats, and then she heard the sitting-room 
door open, and she looked round to see who it 
was coming in. It was Simonne, who came 
bustling in with a troubled look, like ripples in 
a placid smooth pool. The good old creature 
had put on a shawl and gloves, and a clean cap 
with huge frills, and stood silent, nmbrella in 
hand, and staring at the calm-looking lady at 
her work-table. 

"What is it?" said Marthe, looking np. 
" Simonne, is my mother unwell?" 

" Madame is quite well ; do not be uneasy," 
said Simonne, with a quick, uncertain glance in 
Mrs. Maynard's face. 

"Have you brought me back Patty?" said 
Mrs. Maynard. " Has Betty come with you ?" 



"Betty? I don't know where she is," said 
Simonne. " She is a craze-pated girl, and you 
should not allow her to take charge of Patty." 
Mrs. Maynard smiled. She knew Simonne's 
ways of old. All cooks, housekeepers, ladies' 
maids, etc., under fifty, were crazy-pated girls 
with Simmone, wiiose sympathies certainly did 
not rest among her own class. Mrs. Maynard's 
smile, however, changed away when she looked 
at Simonne a second time. 

"I am sure something is the matter," Mar- 
the cried, starting up. "Where's Patty?" 
The poor mother, suddenly conjecturing evil, had 
turned quite pale, and all the soft contentment 
and calm were gone i^ one instant. She seized 
Simonne's arm with an imploring nervous clutch, 
as if praying that it miglit be nothing dreadful. 

" Don't be uneasy, madame," said Simonne. 
"Girls are girls, and that Betty is too scatter- 
brained to be trusted another time : she missed 
Patty and came alone to our house. Oh, I sent 
iier off quickly enough to meet mademoiselle. 
But you see, madame," Simonne was hurrying 
on nervously over her words, "our Patty is so 
young, she thinks of no harm, she runs here and 
there just as fancy takes her ; but a young girl 
must not be talked of, and — and it does not do 
for her to be seen alone in company with any 
body but her mother or father. There's no 
harm done, but — " 

"What are yon talking of — why do you 
frighten me for nothing, Simonne?" said Mrs. 
Maynard, recovering crossly with a faint gasp 
of relief, and thinking all was well. She had 
expected a broken limb at least in her sudden 
alarm. 

"There, Marthe," said Simonne, taking Iter 
hand, "you must not be angry with me. It 
was the concierge de chez nous, who made a re- 
mark which displeased me, and I thought I had 
best come straight to you." 

"My Patty! my Patty! What have you been 
doing, Simonne ? How dare you talk of my 
child to common people !'' said the anxious 
mother. 

"I was anxious, madame," said poor Si- 
monne, humbly. "I looked for her up the street 
and along the great avenue, and our concierge 
met me and said : ' Don't trouble yourself. I 
met your young lady going towards the forest in 
company with a young man.' She is a naughty 
cliild, and I was vexed, madame, that is all," 
said Simonne. 

But Mrs. Maynard hardly heard her to the 
end — she put up her two hands with a little cry 
of anxious horror. "And is she not back? 
What have you been doing ? why did you not 
come before ? My Patty ! my Patty ! what ab- 
surd mistake is this? Oh, where is my hus- 
b.and ? Papa, papa !" cried poor Mrs. Maynard, 
distracted, running out upon the landing. Mr. 
Maynard was coming up stairs at tliat instant, 
followed by the blowsy and breathless Betty. 

Mr. Maynard had evidently heard the whole 
story : he looked black and white, as people do 
who are tcrriblv disturbed and annoved. Had 



LITTLE BED RIDING HOOD. 



191 



they been at home in England, Fatty's disap- 
pearance would have seemed nothing to them ; 
there were half a dozen young cousins and 
neighbors to whose care she might have been 
trusted, but here where they knew no one, it 
was inexplicable, and no wonder they were dis- 
quieted and shocked. Mr. Maynard tried to re- 
assure his wife, and vented his anxiety in wrath 
upon the luckless Betty. 

Marthe sickened as she listened to Betty's 
sobs and excuses. "I can't help it," said the 
stupid girl, with a scared face. ''Miss Patty 
didn't wait for me. The old woman says she 
saw a red hood in the forest, going along with 
a young man — master heard her . . ." 

" The concierge says he thinks it is missis's j 
nephew!" I 

"Ah!" screamed poor Mrs. Maynard; "I j 
see it all." 

"Hold your tongue, you fool! How dare 
you all come to me with such lies?" shouted 
Maynard to the maid. He was now thoroughly 
frightened. After all, it might be a plot; who 
could tell what villainy tlfet young man might 
be capable of— carrying her off, marrying her ; 
all for the sake of her money. And, full of this 
new alarm, he rushed down into the court again. 
The old woman was gone, but a carriage was 
standing there waiting to be engaged. 

"We may as well go and fetch Patty at your 
mother's," Maynard called out to his wife, with 
some appearance of calmness. ' ' I dare say 
she is there by this time." Mrs. Maynard ran 
down stairs and got in, Simonne bundled in too, 
and sat with her back to the horses. But that 
ten minutes' drive was so horrible that not one 
of them ever spoke of it again. 

They need not have been so miserable, poor 
people, if they had only known Patty had safely 
reached her grandmother's door by that time. 
When the concierge, who was sitting on his bar- 
row at the door, let her in and looked at her 
with an odd expression in his face, " Simonne 
was in a great anxiety about you, mademoi- 
selle," said he ; "she is not yet come in. Your 
grandmamma is up stairs, as usual. Have you 
had a pleasant walk?" 

Patty made no answer; she ran up stairs 
quickly. "I must not stay long," she said to 
herself. "I wonder if Eemy is there." The 
front door was open, and she went in, and then 
along the passage, and witii a beating heart she 
stopped and knocked at her grandmother's door. 1 
"Come in, child," the old lady called out from ! 
the inside ; and as Patty nervously fumbled at 
the handle, the voice inside added, "Lift up the 
latch, and the hasp will fall. Come in," and 
Patty went in as she was told. 

It was getting to be a little dark in-doors by 
this time, and the room seemed to Patty full of 
an odd dazzle of light — jicrhaps because the glass 
door of the dressing-closet, in which many of 
Madame Capuchon's stores were kept, was open. 

"Come here, child," said her grandmother, 
hoarselv, "and let me look at vou." 



" How hoarsely you speak !" said Patty ; " I'm 
afraid your cold is very bad, grandmamma." 

The old lady grunted and shook her head. 
" My health is miserable at all times," she said. 
"What is that you have got in your basket? 
butter, is it. not, by the smell ?" 

" What a good nose you have, grandmam- 
ma!" said Patty, laughing faintly, and opening 
her basket. "I have brought you a little pat 
of butter, and some honeycomb, with mamma's 
love," said Patty. "They will supply you from 
the hotel, if you like, at the same price you pay 
now." • 

"Thank you, child," saidMadame Capuchon. 
"Come a little closer, and let me look at you. 
Why, what is the matter? You are all sorts of 
colors — blue, green, red. What have you been 
doing, miss ? See if you can find my specta- 
cles on that table." 

"What do you want tliem for, grandmam- 
ma ?" Patty asked, fumbling about among all 
the various little odds and ends. 

"The better to see you, my dear, and any 
body else who may call upon me," said the 
gi-andmamma, in her odd broken English. Pat- 
ty was nervous still and confused, longing to ask 
whether Re'my had made his appearance, and 
not daring to speak his name first. " Come 
down here, "said her grandmother, deliberately 
putting on her spectacles. " What is this I hear 
from your cousin, mademoiselle ? Do you know 
(hat no well-bred young woman gives her heart 
without permission ; and so I told him, and sent 
him about his business," said the old lady, look- 
ing fixedly through her glasses. " Ah, little 
girls like you are fortunate to have grannies to 
sever them from importunate admirers, and to 
keep such histories from their parents' ear." 

"What do yon mean, grandmamma? I don't 
want to hide any thinff," cried Patty, clasping 
her hands piteously, and bursting into tears. 
" Only I do care for him dearly, dearly, dearly, 
grandmamma," and turning passionately, in her 
confusion she knocked over a little odd-shaped 
bo.x that was upon the table, and it opened and 
something fell out. 

"Be careful, child! What have you done?" 
said the old lady, sharpl}'. "Here, give the 
things to me." 

"It's — it's something made of ivory, grand- 
mamma," said stupid Patty, looking up bewilder- 
ed. "What is it for?" 

" Take care ; take care. Those are my teeth, 
child. I can not eat comfortably without them, " 
said the old lady, pettishly. "Here, give them 
to me," and as Patty put out her hand the old 
woman seized it in her own withered old fingers, 
and, holding the child by a firm grip, said again, 
" And so you love him ?" 

"What is the use — who cares?" answered 
poor Patty, desperately, " Avhen you all want to 
send him away from me." 

"We know better," Madame Capuchon was 
beginning, or going to begin, when there was a 
sudden crack at the door of the glass cupboard. 
It seemed to Patty as if her grandmother, cliang- 



11)2 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



iiig lier mind, cried out passionately, "No, they 
shall not send me away." In a moment, a fig- 
ure coming, Patty knew not from whence, had 
sprung upon her, and caught the little thing in 
two strong arms, and held her close to a heart 
that was beating wildly. " You are my wife — 
you shall not escape me," cried lle'my, who had 
been silent all this while, but who could keep 
silence no longer, while Patty, blushing deeper 
and more deeply, then pale, then trembling, an- 
gry, and frowning all at once, tried in vain to 
escape. 

Madame de Capuchon, against ^1 historical 
facts, began to scream and ring her bell, and at 
tliat instant, as it happened, came voices in the 
passage, a confusion outside, the door of the 
room burst open, and Mrs. Maynard, rushing in, 
burst into a flood of tears, tore Patty away from 
Eemy, and clasped her to her heart. 

" I tell you she is here, monsieur," Simonne 
was saying to Maynard himself, who was follow- 
ing his wife. As soon as he saw her there, 
with Patty in her arms, "Now, Marthe," he said, 
"you will at last believe what a goose you arc 
at times ;'' and he began to laugh in a superior 
sort of fashion, and then he choked oddly and 
sat down with his face hidden in his hands. He 
had not even seen Re'my as yet, who thought it 
best to leave them all to themselves for a while, 
and went away through the glass cupboard to 
the dining-room again. 

"But what is it all about?" asked Madame 
Capuchon from her bed. 

" My child, I thought your cousin had robbed 
us of you," her mother sobbed. 

It was all over now, and Patty, also in peni- 
tent tears, was confessing what had detained 
her. They could not be angry at such a time, 
tliey could only clasp her in their loving arms. 
All the little miniatures were looking on from 
tlieir hooks on the wall, the old grandmother was 
sliaking her frills in excitement, and nodding and 
blinking encouragement from her alcove. 

"Look here, Henry," said she to her son-in- 
law ; "I have seen the young man, and I think 
he is a very fine young fellow. In fact, he is 
now waiting in the dining-room, for I sent him 
away when I heard la petite coming. I want- 
ed to talk to her alone. Fc'licie has written to 
me on the subject of their union ; he wishes it, 
I wish it, Patty wishes it ; oh, I can read little 
girls' faces : he has been called to the bar ; my 
property will remain undivided ; why do you op- 
pose their marriage ? I can not conceive what 
objection you can ever have had to it." 

" What objection !" said the squire, astound- 
ed. " Why, you yourself warned me. Felicic 
writes as usual with an eye to her own interest 
— a grasping, covetous — " 

" Hush, hush, dear ; since Remy has brought 
Patty safe back we have no reason to be angry," 
interceded Mrs. Maynard, gently pushing her 
husband towards the door. 

The remembrance of her own youth had 
come back to her here in the place where she 
had suffered so long. Ah ! she had acted a 



hard mother's part when she ever forgot it ; 
and was not Patty her own child ? and could 
she condemn her to a like trial ? The old 
lady's hands and frills were trembling more 
and more by this time ; she was not used to be- 
ing thwarted ; the squire also was accustomed 
to have his own way. 

" My Fe'licie, my poor child, I can not suffer 
her to be spoken of in this way," cried Madame 
Capuchon, who at another time would have 
been the first to complain. 

" Patty is only sixteen," hazarded Mrs. May- 
nard. 

"I was sixteen when I married," said Ma- 
dame Capuchon. 

" Patty shall wait till she is sixty-six before 
I give her to a penniless adventurer," cried the 
squire, in great wrath. 

"Very well," said the old lady, spitefully. 
"Now I will tell you what I have told him. 
As I tell you, he came to see me just now, and 
is at this moment, I believe, devouring the re- 
mains of the pie Simonne prepared for your 
luncheon. I have t6ld him that he shall be my 
heir whether you give him Patty or not. I am 
not joking, Henry, I mean it. I like the young 
man exceedingly. He is an extremely well- 
bred young fellow, and will do us all credit, and 
a girl does not want money like a man." 

Maynard shrugged his shoulders and looked 
at his wife. 

"But, child, do you really care for him?" 
Patty's mother said reproaclifully. "What 
can you know of him ?" and she took both the 
little hands in hers. 

Little Patty hung her head for a minute. 
" Oh mamma, he has told me every thing ; he 
told me he did think of the money at first, but 
only before he knew me. Dear papa, if you 
talked to him you would believe him, indeed 
you would — indeed, indeed you would." Pat- 
ty's imploring wistful glance touched the squire, 
and, as she said, Maynard could not help be- 
lieving in lle'my when he can;e to talk tilings over 
quietly with him, and without losing his temper. 

He found him in the dining-room, M-ith a 
bottle of wine and the empty pie-dish before 
him ; the young man had finished off every 
thing but the bones and the cork and the bot- 
tle. "I had no breakfast, sir,'' said Rc'my, 
starting up, half laughing, half ashamed. "My 
grandmother told me to look in tlie cupboard, 
but, hearing your daughter's voice, I could not 
help going back just now." 

" Such a good appetite should imply a good 
conscience," Maynard thought ; and at last he 
relented, and eventually grew to be very fond 
of his son-in-law. 

Patty and Re'my were married on her seven- 
teenth "birthday. I first saw them in the court- 
yard of the hotel, but afterwards at Sunnymede, 
where tliey spent last summeri 

Madame Capuchon is not yet satisfied with 
the butter. It is a very difficult thing to get 
anywhere good. Simonne is as devoted as ever, 
and tries hard to satisfy her mistress. 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



CHAPTER L 



ON MONSTERS, ETC. 



Most of us bare read at one time or another 
in our lives the article entitled Gigantes, which 
is to be found in a certain well-known diction- 
ary. It tells of that terrible warfare in which 
gods and giants, fighting in fury, hurled burn- 
ing woods and rocks through the atr, piled 
mountains upon mountains, brought seas from 
their boundaries, thundering, to overwhelm their 
adversaries ; — it tells how the gods fled in their 
terror into Egypt, and hid themselves in the 
shapes of animals, until Hercules, the giant- 
killer of tliose strange times, sprang up to res- 
cue and deliver the world from the dire storm 
and confusion into which it had fallen. Her- 
cules laid about him with his club. Others 
since then, our Jack among the rest, have 
fought with gallant courage and devotion, and 
given their might and their strength and their 
lives to the battle. That battle which has no 
end, alas ! and which rages from sunrise to sun- 
down — although hero after hero conies forward, 
full of hope, of courage, of divine fire and in- 
dignation. 

Who shall gainsay us, if nowadays some of 
us may perhaps be tempted to think that the 
tides of victory. flow, not with tiie heroes, but 
with the giants ; that the gods of our own land 
are hiding in strange disguises ; that the heroes 
battling against such unequal odds are weary 
and sad at heart ; while the giants, unconquer- 
ed still, go roaming about the country, oppress- 
ing the poor, devouring the children, laying 
homes bare and desolate ? 

Here is The Times of to-day,* full of a 
strange medley and record of the things which 
are in the world together — Jacks and giants, 
and champion-belts and testimonials; kings 
and queens, knights and castles and ladies, 
screams of horror, and shouts of laughter, and 
of encouragement or anger. Feelings and prej- 
udices and events — all vibrating, urging, retard- 
ing, influencing one another. 

And we read that some emperors are feasting 
in company at their splendid revels, while an- 
other is torn from his throne and carried away 
by a furious and angry foe, by a giant of the 
race which has filled the world with such terror 
in its time. Of late a young giant of that very 
tribe has marched through our own streets ; a 



Miiy. 186T. 
N 



giant at play, it is true, and feeding his morbid 
appetite with purses, chains and watches, and 
iron park-railings; but who shall say that he 
may not perhaps grow impatient as time goes 
on, and cry for other food. 

And meanwhile people are lying dying in 
hospitals, victims of one or more of the cruel 
monsters, whose ill deeds we all have witness- 
ed. In St. Bartholomew's wards, for instance, 
are recorded twenty-three cases of victims dy- 
ing from what doctors call clelirinm tremens. 
Which Jack is there among us strong enough 
to overcome this giant with his cruel, fierce 
fangs, and force him to abandon his prey ? 
Here is the history of two men suffocated in a 
vat at Bristol by the deadly gas from spent 
hops. One of them, Ambrose, is hurrying to 
the other one's help, and gives up his life for 
his companion. It seems hard that such men 
should be sent unarmed into the clutch of such 
pitiable monsters as this ; and one grudges these 
two lives, and the tears of the widows and chil- 
dren. I might go on for many pages fitting the 
parable to the commonest facts of life. The 
great parochial Blunderbore still holds his own ; 
some of his castles have been seized, but others 
are impregnable ; — their doors are kept closed, 
their secrets are undiscovered. 

Other giants, of the race of Cormoran, that 
" dwell in gloomy caverns, and wade over to 
the main-land to steal cattle," are at this in- 
stant beginning to creep from their foul dens, 
by sewers and stagnant waters, spreading death 
and dismay along their path. In the autumn 
their raids are widest and most deadly. Last 
spring I heard two women telling one another 
of a giant of the tribe of Cormoran camping 
down at Dorking in Surrey. A giant with a 
poisoned breath and hungry jaws, attacking not 
only cattle, but the harmless country people all 
about : children, and men, and women, whom 
he seized with his deadly gripe, and choked and 
devoured. Giant Blunderbore, it must be con- 
fessed, has had many a hard blow dealt him of 
late from one Jack and another. Tbere is one 
gallant giant-killer at Fulham hard by, waging 
war with many monsters, the great blind giant 
Ignorance among the rest. Some valiant wom- 
en, too, there are, who have armed themselves 
and gone forth with weak hands and tender 
strong hearts to do their best. I have seen 
some lately who are living in the very midst of 
the dreary labyrinth where one of the great 
Minotaurs of the city is lurking. They stand 



liii 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



at the dark mouth of the ])o:sonoiis caverns, 
warning and entreating those who, in their 
blindness and infatuation, are rushing tliitiiur, 
to beware. " I took a house and came," said 

one of them simply to my friend Mrs. K , 

when she asked her how it happened that she 
was established there in the black heart of the 
city. All round her feet a little ragged tribe 
was squatting on tiie floor, and chirping, and 
spelling and learning a lesson which, pray 
Heaven, will last tliem their lives ; and across 
the road, with pretty little crumpled mob-caps 
all awry on their brown heads, other children 
were sewing and at work under the quiet rule 
of their good teachers. The great business of 
the"city was going on out!;ide. The swarming 
docks were piled with bales, and crowded with 
workmen ; the main thorouglifares streaming 
and teeming with a struggling life ; the side 
streets silent, deserted, and strangely still. A 
bleak north-east wind was blowing down some 
of these gray streets. I have a vision before me 
now of one of them: a black deserted alley or 
passage, hung with some of those rags that seem 
to be like the banners of this reign of sorrow 
and sin. The wind swooped upover the stones, 
the rags waved and fell, and a colorless figure, 
passing up the middle of the dirty gutter pulled 
at its grimy shawl and crouched as it slid along. 
We may well say, we Londoners, See how far 
the east is from the west. I myself, coming 
home at night to the crowded cheerful station, 
and travelling back to the light of love, of 
warmth, of comfort, find myself dimly wonder- 
ing whether those are not indeed our sins out 
yonder set away from us, in that dreary East of 
London district: our sins alive and standing 
along the roadside in rags, and crying out to us 
as we pass. 

Here in our country cottage tlie long summer 
is coming to an end, in falling leaves and set- 
ting suns, and gold and russet, where green 
shoots were twinkling a little time ago. The 
banks of the river have shifted their colors, and 
the water, too, has changed. The song of the 
birds is over; but there are great flights in the 
air, rapid, mysterious. For weeks past we have 
been living in a gracious glamour and dazzle of 
light and warmth ; and now, as we see it go, 
H. and I make plans, not unwillingly, for a 
winter to be passed between the comtbrtable 
walls of our winter home. The children, heai*- 
ing our talk, begin to prattle of the treasures 
tliey will find in the nursery at London, as they 
call it. Dolly's head, which was unfortunately 
forgotten when we came awaj-, and the pan- 
niers off the wooden donkey's i)ack-, and little 
neighbor Joan, who will come to tea again, in 
the doll's tea-things. Yestei-day, when I came 
home from the railway-station across the bridge, 
little Anne, who had never in her short life seen 
the lamps of the distant town alight, came tod- 
dling up chattering about " de pooty tandles," 
and pulling my dress to make me turn and see 
them too. 



To-night otiier lights have been bhizing. 
The west has been shining along the hills with 
a gorgeous autumnal fire. From our terrace we 
have watched the lights and the mists as they 
succeed one another, streaming mysteriously be- 
fore yonder great high altar. It has been blaz- 
ing as if for a solemn ceremonial and burnt sac- 
rifice. As we watch it, other people look on in 
the fields, on the hills, and from the windows 
of the town. Evening incense rises from the 
valley, and mounts up through the stillness. 
The waters catch the light and repeat it ; the 
illumination falls upon us, too, as we look and 
see how high the heavens are in comparison with 
the earth ; and suddenly, as we are waiting still, 
and looking and admiring, it is over — the glory 
has changed into peaceful twilight. 

And so we come away, closing shutters and 
doors and curtains, and settling down to our 
common occupations and thoughts again ; but 
outside another high service is beginning, and 
the lights of the great northern altar are burn- 
ing faintly in their turn. 



CHAl'TER 11. 



CORMORAN. 



In the same way that fimcy worlds and dreams 
do not seem meant for the dreary stone streets 
and smoky highways of life, neither do they be- 
long to summer and holiday time, when reality 
is so vivid, so sweet, and so near. It is but a 
waste to dream of fairies dancing in rings, or 
]ieeping from the woods, when the singing and 
shining is in all the air, and the living sunshiny 
cliildren are running on the lawn, and pulling 
at the flowers with their determined little fin- 
gers ; and when there are butterflies and cuck- 
oos and flowing streams, and the sounds of 
flocks and tlio vibrations of summer every- 
where. Little Anne comes trotting up with 
a rose-head tight-crushed in her hand ; little 
Margery has got a fern-leaf stuck into her hat; 
Puck, Teas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustard- 
seed, themselves, are all invisible in this great 
day-shine. The gracious fiincy kingdom van- 
ishes at cock-crow, we know. It is not among 
realities so wonderful and beautiful that we can 
scarce realize them that we must look for it. 
Its greatest triumphs are where no other light 
shines to brighten — by weary sick-beds : when 
distance and loneliness oppress. Who can not 
remember days and hours when a foolish con- 
ceit has come now and again, like a "flower 
growing on the edge of a preci])ice," to distract 
the dizzy thoughts from the dark depths below ? 

Certainly it was through no fancy world that 
poor John Trevithic's path led him wandering 
in life, but amid realities so stern and so pitiful 
at times that even his courage failed him now 
and then. He was no celebrated hero, though 
I have ventured to christen him after the great 
type of our childliood ; he was an honest out- 
spoken young fellow, with a stubborn temper 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



195 



and a tender heart, impressionable to outer 
tilings, although from within it was not often 
that any thing seemed to affect his even moods 
and cheerful temper. He was a bright-faced, 
broad-set young fellow, about six-and-twenty, 
with thick light hair and eagleish eyes, and lips 
and whi,te teeth like a girl. His hands were like 
himself, broad and strong, with wide competent 
fingers that could fight and liold fast, if need 
be ; and yet they were so clever and gentle 
withal that children felt safe in his grasp and 
did not think of crying, and people in trouble 
would clutch at them when he put them out. 
Ferhaps Jack did not always understand the ex- 
tent of the griefs for which his cheerful sym- 
pathy was better medicine, after all, than any 
mere morbid investigation into their depths 
could have proved to most of us. 

The first time I ever heard of the Rev. John 
Trevithic was at Sandsea one morning, when 
my maid brought in two cards, upon which were 
inscribed the respective names of Miss Moineaux 
and Miss Triquett. I had taken a small furnish- 
ed house at the seaside (for H. was ailing in those 
days and had been ordered salt air by the doc- 
tors) ; we knew nobody and nothing of the peo- 
ple of the place, so that I was at first a little 
bewildered by the visit ; but I gathered from a 
few indescribable indications that the small flut- 
tering lady who came in sideways was Miss 
Moineaux, and the bony, curly, scanty person- 
age with the big hook-nose who accompanied 
her, Miss Triquett. They both sat down very 
politely, as people do who ai'e utter strangers to 
you and about to ask you for money. Miss 
Moineaux fixed a little pair of clear meek im- 
ploring eyes upon me. Miss Triquett took in 
the apartment with a quick uncomfortable swoop 
or ball-like glance. Then she closed her eyes 
for an instant as she cleared her throat. 

She need not have been at any great pains in 
her investigations ; the story told itself. Two 
middle-aged women, with their desks and work- 
baskets open before them, and The Times and 
some Indian letters just come in, on the table, 
the lodging-house mats, screens, Windsor chairs, 
and druggets, a fire burning for H.'s benefit, an 
open window for mine, the pleasant morning 
wash and rush of the sea against the terrace 
upon which the windows opened, and the voices 
of H.'s grandchildren playing outside. I can 
see all the cheerful glitter now as I write. I 
loved the little place that strikes me so quaint- 
ly and kindly as I think of it. The sun shone 
all the time we were there ; day by day I saw 
health and strength coming into my H.'s pale 
face. The house was comfortable, the walks 
were pleasant, good news came to us of those 
we loved. In short, I was happy there, and one 
can not always give a reason for being happy. 
In the mean time, Miss Triquett had made her 
observations with her wandering ball eyes. 

" We called," she said in a melancholy, cleri- 
cal voice, "thinking that you ladies might pos- 
sibly be glad to avail yourselves of an opportuni- 
ty for subscribing to a testimonial which we are 



about to present to our friend and pastor, the 
Reverend John Trevithic, M.A., and for which 
my friend Miss Moineaux and myself are fully 
prepared to receive subscriptions. You are per- 
haps not aAvare that we lose him on Tuesday 
week?" 

"No, indeed," said I, and I am afraid my 
cap-strings began to rustle as they have a way 
of doing when I am annoyed. 

"I'm sure I'm afraid you must think it a 
great liberty of us to call," burst in little Miss 
Moineaux, flurriedly, in short disconnected sen- 
tences. "I trust you will pardon us. They 
say it is quite certain he is going. We have 
had a suspicion — perhaps . . . ." Poor Miss 
Moineaux stopped short, and turned very red, 
for Triquett's eye was upon her. She contin- 
ued falteringly, "Miss Triquett kindly suggest- 
ed collecting a teapot and strainer, if possible — 
it depends, of course, upon friends and admirers. 
You know how one longs to show one's grati- 
tude ; and I'm sure in our hopeless state of apa- 
thy .... we had so neglected the commonest 
precautions — " 

Here Miss Triquett interposed. "The au- 
thorities were greatly to blame. Mr. Trevithic 
did his part, no more ; but it is peculiarly as a 
pastor and teacher that we shall miss him. It 
is a pity that you have not been aware of his 
ministry." (A roll of the eyes.) A little rus- 
tle and chirrup from Miss Moineaux. 

" If the ladies had only heard him last Sun- 
day afternoon — no, I mean the morning before." 

"The evening appeal was still more impres- 
sive," said Miss Triquett. "I am looking for- 
ward anxiously to his farewell next Sunday.'' 

It was really too bad. Were these two strange 
women who had come to take forcible possession 
of our morning-room about to discuss at any 
length the various merits of Mr. Trevithic"s last 
sermon but two, but three, next but one, taking 
up my time, my room» asking for my money ? 
I was fairly out of temper when, to my horror, 
H., in her flute voice from the sofii, where she 
had been lying under her soft silk quilt, said, 
"Mary, will you give these ladies a sovereign 
for me towards the teapot ? Mr. Trevithic was 
at school with my Frank, and this is not, I thinkj 
the first sovereign he has had from me." 

Miss Triquett's eyes roved over to the sofa. 
It must have seemed almost sacrilege to her to 
speak of Mr. Trevithic as a school-boy, or even 
to have known liim in jackets. " It is as a 
tribute to the pastor that these subscriptions are 
collected," said she, with some dignity, "not on 
any lower — " 

But it was too late, for little Miss Moineaux 
had already sprung forward with a grateful 
" Oh, thank you!'' and clasped H.'s thin hand. 

And so at last we got rid of the poor little 
women. They fluttered off with their prize, 
their thin silk dresses catching the wind as they 
skimmed along the sands, their little faded raants 
and veils and curls and petticoats flapping fee- 
bly after them, their poor little well-worn feet 
j patting off in search of fresh tribute to Trevithic. 



196 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



" I declare they were both in love with him, 
ridiculous old gooses," said I. ' ' How could you 
give them that sovereign ?" 

"He was a delightful boy," said H. (She 
melts to all school-boys still, though her own are 
grown men and out in the world.) "I used to 
be very angry with him ; he and Frank were al- 
ways getting into scrapes together," said H., with 
a smiling sigh, for Major Frank was on his way 
home from India, and tlie poor mother could 
trust herself to speak of him in her happiness. 
"I hope it is the right man," H. went on, laugh- 
ing. " You must go and hear the farewell ora- 
tion, Mary, and tell me how many of these lit- 
tle ladies are carried out of church." 

They behaved like heroines. They never 
faltered or fainted, they gave no outward sign 
(except, indeed, a stifled sob here and there). 
I think the prospect of the teapot buoyed them 
up ; for after the service two or three of them 
assembled in the churchyard, and eagerly dis- 
cussed some measure of extreme emphasis. 
They were joined by the gentleman who had 
held the plate at the door, and then their voices 
died away into whispers, as the rector and Mr. 
Trevithic himself came out of the little side-door, 
where Miss Bellingham, the rector's daughter, 
had been standing waiting. The rector was a 
smug old gentleman in a nice Sunday tie. He 
gave his arm to his daughter, and trotted along, 
saying, "How do? how do?" to the various 
personages he passed. 



The curate followed : a straight and active 
young fellow, with a bright face — a face that 
looked right and left as he came along. He 
didn't seem embarrassed by the notice he excit- 
ed. The four little girls from Coote Court (so 
somebody called them) rushed forward to meet 
him, saying, "Good-bye, dear Mr. Trevithic, 
good-bye." Mrs. Myles herself, sliding off to 
her pony carriage, carrying her satin train all 
over her arms, stopped to smile, and to put out 
a slender hand, letting the satin stuff" fall into 
the dust. Young Lord and Lady Wargrave 
were hurrying away with their various guests, 
but they turned and came back to say a friend- 
ly word to this popular young curate ; and Colo- 
nel Hambledon, Lord Wargrave's brother, gave 
him a friendly nod, and said, " I shall look in 
one day before you go." I happened to know 
the names of all these people, because I had sat 
in Mrs. Myles's pew at cliurch, and I had seen 
the Wargraves in London. 

The subscribers to the teapot were invited to 
visit it at Mr. Philip's, in Cockspur Street, to 
whom the design had been intrusted. It was a 
very handsome teapot, as ugly as other teapots 
of the florid order, and the chief peculiarity was 
that a snake grasped by a clenched hand formed 
the handle, and a figure with bandages on its 
head was sitting on the melon on the lid. This 
was intended to represent an invalid recovering 
from illness. Upon one side was the following 
inscription : — 



TO 

THE EEY. JOHN TEEVITHIC, M.A., 

FROM HIS PARISHIONERS, AT SAXDSEA, 

IN GRATEFUL REiMEMBRANCE OF HIS EXERTIONS DURING 

THE CHOLERA SEASON OF 18—, 

AND HIS SUCCESSFUL AND ENTERPRISING EFFORTS FOR THE IMPROVED 

DRAINAGE OF HIGH STREET AND THE NEIGHBORING ALLEYS, 

ESPECIALLY THOSE 

KNOWN AS "ST. MICHAEL'S BUILDINGS." 

Upon the other — 

TO THE EEV. JOHN TEEVITHIC, M.A. 



Both these inscriptions were composed by 
Major Coote, of Coote Court, a J. P. for the 
county. Several other magistrates had sub- 
scribed, and the presentation-paper was signed 
by most of the ladies of the town. I recognized 
the bold autograph of Louisa Triquett, and the 
lady-like quill of Sarah Moineaux, among the 
rest. H. figured as " Anon." down at the bot- 
tom. 

Jack had honestly earned his teapot, the 
pride of his mother's old heart. He had worked 
hard during that unfortunate outbreak of chol- 
era, and when the summer came round again, 
the young man had written quires, ridden miles, 
talked himself hoarse, .about this neglected sew- 
er in St. Michael's Buildings. The Town 
Council, finding that the whole of High Street 
would have to be taken up, and what a very se- 



rious undertaking it was likely to be, were anx- 
ious to compromise matters, and they might have 
succeeded in doing so if it had not been for the 
young man's determination. Old Mr. Belling- 
ham, who had survived some seventy cholera 
seasons, was not likely to be very active in the 
matter. Every body was away, as it happened, 
at that time, except Major Coote, who was ea- 
sily talked over by any body; and Jobsen, the 
mayor, had got hold of him, and Trevithic, 
had to fight the battle alone. One person sympa- 
thized with him from the beginning, and talked 
to her father, and insisted, very persistently, 
that he should see the necessity of the measure. 
This was Anne Bellingham, who, with her soft 
pink eyes fixed on Trevithic's face, listened to 
every word he said with interest — an interest 
which quite touched and gratified the young 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



197 



man, breathless and weary of persuading fish- 
mongers, of trying to influence the sleek obsti- 
nate butcher, and the careworn baker with his 
ten dusty children, and the stolid oil-and-color 
man, who happened to be the mayor that year. 
It seemed, indeed, a hopeless ease to induce 
these worthy people to increase the rates, to dig 
up the High Street under their very windows, 
to poison themselves and their families, and 
drive away custom just as the season was be- 
ginning. John confessed humbly that he had 
been wrong, that he should have pressed the 
matter more urgently upon them in the spring, 
but he had been ill and away, if they remem- 
bered, and others had promised to see to it. It 
would be all over in a week, before their regu- 
lar customers arrived. 

Jack's eloquence succeeded in the end. How 
it came about I can scarcely tell — he himself 
scarcely knew. He had raised the funds, writ- 
ten to Lord Wargrave, and brought Colonel 
Hambledon himself down from town ; between 
them they arranged with the contractors, and it 
was all settled almost, without any body's leave 
or authority. One morning, Trevithic, hearing 
a distant rumbling of wheels, jumped up from 
his breakfast and ran to the window, A file 
of carts and workmen were passing the end of 
the street; men with pickaxes and shovels; 
carts laden with strange-looking pipes and iron 
bars. Mr. Mofl[\\t, the indignant butcher, found 
a pit of ten feet deep at his shop-door that even- 
ing; and Smutt, the baker, in a fury, had to 
send his wife and children to her mother, to be 
out of the way of the mess. In a week, how- 
ever, the whole thing was done, the pit was cov- 
ered over, the foul stream they dreaded was bur- 
ied down deep in the earth, and then in a little 
while the tide of opinion began to turn. When 
all the coast was in a terror and confusion, 
when cholera had broken out in one place and 
in another, and the lodging-houses were empty, 
the shop-keepers loud in complaints — at Sand- 
sea, thanks to these "well-timed exertions," as 
people call draining, not a single case was re- 
ported, and though the season was not a good 
one for ordinary times, compared to other neigh- 
boring places, Sandsea was triumphant. Smutt 
was apologetic, Moffat was i*adiant, and so was 
Anne Bellingham in her quiet way. As for 
Miss Triquett, that devoted adherent, she near- 
ly jumped for joy, hearing that the mayor of 
the adjoining watering-place was ill of the pre- 
vailing epidemic and not expected to live. 

And then the winter went by, and this timo 
of excitement passed over and the spring-time 
came, and John began to look about and ask 
questions about other men's doings and ways of 
life. It did not come upon him all in one day 
that lie wanted a change, but little by little he 
realized that something was amiss. He him- 
self could hardly tellwhat it was when Colo- 
nel Hambledon asked him one day. For one 
thing, I think his own popularity oppressed him. 
He was too good-humored and good-natured 
not to respond to the advances which met iiim 



from one side and another, but there were but 
few of the people, except Miss Bellingham, 
with whom he felt any very real sympathy, be- 
yond that of gratitude and good-fellowship. 
Colonel Hambledon was his friend, but he was 
almost constantly away, and the Wargraves, too, 
only came down from time to time. Jack 
I would have liked to see more of Mrs. Myles, 
I the pretty widow, but she was the only person 
! in the place who seemed to avoid him. Colo- 
nel Coote Mas a silly good-natured old man ; 
Miss Triquett and Miss Moineaux were scarce- 
ly companions. Talking to these ladies, who 
j agreed with every word he said, was some- 
thing like looking at his own face reflected in a 
spoon. 

Poor Trevithic used to long to fly when they 
began to quote his own seriiijons to him : but 
his practice was better than his preaching, and, 
too kind-hearted to wound their feelings by any 
expression of impatience, he would wait pa- 
tiently while Miss Moineaux nervously tried to 
remember what it was that had made such an 
impression upon her the last time she heard 
him ; or Miss Triquett expressed her views on the 
management of the poor-kitchen, and read out 
portions of her correspondence, such as : — 

" Mt dearest Makia, — I have delayed an- 
swering your very kind letter until the return of 
the warmer weather. Deeply as I sympathize 
with your well-meant efforts for the welfare of 
your poorer neighbors, I am sorry that I can not 
subscribe to the fund you are raising for the 
benefit of your curate." 

"My aunt is blunt, very blunt," said Miss 
Triquett, explaining away any little awkward- 
ness; " but she is very good, Mr. Trevithic, and 

i you have sometimes said that we must not ex- 

' pect too much from our relations ; I try to re- 

i member that." 

! It was impossible to be seriously angry. Jack 
looked at her oddly, as she stood there by the 

! pump in the market-place where she had caught 
him. How familiar the whole scene was to him ; 

j the village street, the gable of the rectory on the 
hill up above, Miss Triquett's immovable glare ; 
— a stern vision of her used to rise before him 

I long after, and make him almost laugh, looking 
back from a different place and world, with 
strange eyes that had seen so many things that 
did not exist for him in those dear tiresome old 
days. 

On this occasion Jack and Miss Triquett were 
on their way to the soup-kitchen, where the dis;- 
trict meeting was held once a month. Seeing 
Colonel Hambledon across the street, Trevithic 
escaped for a minute to speak to him, while 
Triquett went on. The ladies came dropping 
in one by one. It was a low room with a bow- 
window on the street, and through an open door 
came a smell of roast-mutton from the kitchen, 
where a fire was burning; and a glimpse of a 
poultry-yard beyoftd the kitchen itself. There 
were little mottoes hung up all about in antique 



198 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



spelling, such as "Caste thy bridde upon ye 
v.atteres," the fancy and design of Mrs. Vickcrs, 
the present manager. She was very languid, 
and High Church, and opposed to Miss Triquett 
and her friend Miss Hutchetts, who had reigned 
tliere before Mrs. Vickers's accession. Tliis 
Iiousekeeping was a serious business. It was a 
labor of love, and of jealousy too : each district 
lady took the appointment in turn, while the 
ethers looked on and ratified her measures. 
Thei-e was a sort of house of commons composed 
of Miss Simmonds, who enjoyed a certain con- 
sideration because she was so very fat; good 
old Mrs. Fox, with her white hair ; and Mrs. 
Champion, a sort of lord chancellor in petticoats ; 
and when every body made objections the house- 
keeper sometimes resigned. Mrs. Vickers had 
held firm for some months, and here she is sort- 
ing out little tickets, writing little bills into a 
book, and comparing notes with the paper lists 
which the ladies have brought in. 

" Two-and-sixpence a week for her lodging, 
three children, two deformed ; owes fifteen shil- 
lings, deserted wife, can get no relief from the 
parent," Miss Moineaux reads out from her 
slip. 

"That is a hopeless case," says Mrs. Cham- 
pion ; " let her go into the work-house." 

"They have been there for months," says 
Miss Moineaux, perhaps. 

"It is no use trying to help such people," 
says Miss Triquett, decidedly. 

" Here is a pretty doctrine," cried Miss Sim- 
monds: " the worse off folks are, the less help 
they may expect." 

"When people are hopelessly lazy, dirty, and 
diseased," said Miss Triquett, with some asperi- 
ty, "the money is only wasted wliich might be 
invaluable to the deserving. As long as I am 
intrusted with funds from this charity, I shall 
take care they are well bestowed." 

" I — I have promised Gummers some assist- 
ance," faltered Miss Moineaux. 

3Jiss Simmonds. " And she ought to have it, 
my dear." 

Miss T. "I think you forget that is for Mr. 
Trevithic to decide." 

Miss S. "I think you are forgetting your duty 
as a Christian woman." 

Miss T. "I choose to overlook this insult. 
I will appeal to Mr. Trevithic." 

Miss S. " Pray do not take the trouble to for- 
give me, Miss Triquett, or to appeal to any one. 
Never since Miss Hutchetts went away — " 

Miss T. " Miss Hutchetts is my friend, and I 
will not allow her name to be — " 

Exit Miss Moineaux in alarm to call for as- 
sistance. Miss Hutchetts, as they all know by 
c.Kperience, is the string of the shower-bath, the 
war-cry of the Amazons. 

The battle was raging furiously when Miss 
Moineaux came back and flung herself devoted- 
ly into the miUe. Miss Triquett was charging 
right and left, shells \vere flying, artillery rattling. 
It was a wonder tlie windows ^vere not broken. 

Mrs. Champion was engaged with a liand-to- 



hand fight with Miss Simmonds. Mrs. Vickers 
was laughing. Miss Moineaux was trembling; 
out of the window poured such a clamorous mob 
of words and swell of voices that John and the 
Colonel stopped to listen instead of going in. 
A dog and a puppy, attracted by the noise, stood 
wagging their tails in tlie sun. 

" Hutchetts — Christian dooty — dirty children 
— statistics — gammon," that was Miss Sim- 
monds's voice, there was no mistaking. " La- 
dies, I beg," from Mrs. Vickers; and here the 
alarm-bell began to ring ten minutes before the 
children's dinner, and the sun shone, and the 
heads bobbed at the window, and all of a sud- 
den there was a lull. 

Trevithic, who like a coward had stopped out- 
side while the battle was raging, ran up the low 
flight of steps to see what had been going on, 
now that the danger was over, the guns silent, 
and the field, perhaps, strewed with the dead 
and the dytng. No harm was done, he found, 
when he walked into the room ; only Miss Tri- 
quett was hurt, her feelings had been wounded 
in the engagement, and she was murmuring that 
her friend Miss Hutchetts's character as a gen- 
tlewoman had been attacked, but no one was 
listening to her. Mrs. Vickers was talking to a 
smiling and pleasant -looking lady, who was 
standing in the middle of tlie room. I don't 
know by what natural art Mary Myles had quieted 
all the turmoil wliich had been raging a minute 
before, but her pretty winsome ways had an in- 
terest and fascination for them all ; for old Miss 
Triquett herself, who had not very much that 
was pleasant or pretty to look at, and who by 
degrees seemed to be won over, too, to forget 
Miss Hutchetts, in her interest in what this pret- 
ty widow was saying — it was only something 
about a school-treat in her garden. She stop- 
ped short and blushed as Trevithic came in. 
" Oh, here is Mr. Trevithic," she said ; "I will 
wait till he has finished his business." 

Jack would rather not have entered into it 
in her presence, but he began as usual, and 
plodded on methodically, and entered into the 
mysteries of soup -meat, and flannelling, and 
rheumatics, and the various ills and remedies 
of life, but he could not help feeling a certain 
scorn for himself, and embarrassment and con- 
tempt for the shame he was feeling ; and as he 
caught Mary Myles's bright still eyes curiously 
fixed upon him, Jack wondered whether an)^- 
where else in the world, away from these curi- 
ous glances, he might not find work to do more 
congenial and worthy of the name. It was not 
Mrs. Myles's presence which affected him so 
greatly, but it seemed like the last grain in the 
balance against this chirruping tea-drinking life 
he had been leading so long. It was an impos- 
sibility any longer. He was tired of it. There 
was not one of these old women who was not 
doing her part more completely than he was, 
with more heart and good spirit than himself. 

Some one had spoken to him of a work-house 
chaplaincy going begging at Hammersley, a 
great inland town on the borders of Wales. 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



191) 



Jack was like a clock which begins to strike as 
soon as the hands point to the hour. That 
very night he determined to go over and see 
the place ; and he wrote to a friend of his at 
Ilammersley to get liim permission, and to tell 
the authoi-itics of the intention with which he 
came. 



CHAPTER IIL 



AN OGRESS. 



When John Trevithic, with his radiant, 
cheerful foce, marched for the first time through 
the wards of St. Magdalene's, the old creatures 
propped up on tlieir pillows to see him pass, 
both the master and mistress went with him, 
duly impressed with his possible iTiipovtance, 
and pointed out one person and another ; and 
as the mighty trio advanced, the poor souls 
cringed, and sighed, and greeted them with 
strange nods, and gasps, and contortions. John 
trudged along, saying little, but glancing right 
and left with his briglit eyes. He was very 
much struck, and somewhat overcome by the 
sight of so much that was sad, and in orderly 
rows, and a blue cotton uniform. Was this to 
be his charge ? all these hundreds of weary 
years, all these aching limbs and desolate waifs 
from stranded homes, this afflicted multitude of 
past sufferings? He said nothing, but walked 
along with his hands in his pockets, looking in 
vain to see some face brigliten at the master's 
approach. The faces worked, twitciied, woke 
up eagerly, but not one caught the light which is 
reflected from the heart. What endless wards, 
what a labyrinth of woes inclosed in the white- 
washed walls ! A few poor prints of royal per- 
sonages, and of hop-gathering, and Christmas, 
out of the London News, Avcre hanging on them. 
Whitewash and blue cotton, and weary foces in 
the women's wards ; whitewash and brown fus- 
tian, and sullen, stupid loo!:s in the men's : this 
was all Trevithic carried away iruhis bi-ain that 
first day; — misery and whitewash, and a 
dull choking atmospliere, from which he was 
ashamed almost to escape out into the street, 
into the square, into the open fields outside the 
town, across which his way led back to the sta- 
tion. 

Man proposes, and if ever a man honestly 
proposed and determined to do his duty, it was 
John Trevithic, stretched out in his railway cor- 
ner, young and stout of heart and of limb, eager 
for change and for work. He was not very par- 
ticular ; troubles did not oppose him morbidly. 
He had not been bred up in so refined a school 
that poverty and suffering frightened him ; but 
the sight of all this hopelessness, age, failure, 
all neatly stowed away, and whitewashed over 
in those stony wards, haunted him all the way 
home. They haunted him all the way up to 
the rectory, where he was to dine that evening, 
and between the intervals of talk, which were 
pretty frequent after Miss Bcllingham had left 
the room and the two gentlemen to their claret. 



Jack had almost made up his mind, and indeed 
he felt like a traitor as he came into the draw- 
ing-room, and he could not help seeing how 
Anne brightened iip as she beckoned him 
across the room and made him sit down beside 
her. A great full harvest-moon was shining in 
at the window, a late autumnal bird was sing- 
ing its melancholy song, a little wind blew in 
and rustled round the room, and Anne, in her 
muslins and laces, looked like a beautiful pale 
pensive dream-lady by his side. Perhaps he 
might not see her again, he thought, rather sen- 
timentally, and that henceforth their ways would 
lie asunder. But how kind she had been to him I 
How pretty she was ! What graceful woman- 
ly ways she had ! How sorry he should be to 
part from her ! He came away and said good- 
bye quite sadly, looking in her face with a sort 
of apology, as if to beg her pardon for what he 
was going to do. He had a feeling that she 
would be sorry that he«Bhould leave her — a lit- 
tle sorry, although she was far removed from 
him. The birds sang to him all the way home 
along the lane, and Jack slept very sour.d, and 
awoke in the morning quite determined in his 
mind to go. As his landlady brought in his 
breakfast-tray he said to himself that there was 
nothing more to keep him at Sandsea, and then 
he sat down and wrote to Mr. Bcllingham that 
instant, and sent up the note by Mrs. Bazley's 
boy. 

A little later in the day, Tre\ithic went over 
to the rectory himself. He wanted to get the 
matter quite settled, for he could not help feel- 
ing sorry as he came along, and wondering 
whether he had been right, after all. He asked 
for the rector, and the man showed him into the 
study, and in a minute more the door opened, 
but it was Miss Bellingham, not her father, 
who came in. 

She looked very strange and pale, and put 
out two trembling hands, in one of which she 
was holding John's letter. 

" Oh, Mr. Trevithic, what is this ? what docs 
this mean?" she said. 

What indeed ? he need never have written 
the words, for in anotlier minute suddenly Miss 
Bellingham burst into tears. 

They were very ill-timed tears as far as her 
own happiness was concerned, as well as that of 
poor John Trevithic, who stood liy full of con;- 
passion, of secret terror at Ins own weakness, of 
which for the first time he began to suspect the 
extent. He was touched and greatly affected. 
He walked away to the fireplace and came batk 
and stood before her, an honest, single-hearted 
young fellow, with an immense compassion for 
weak tilings, such as women and children, and 
a great confidence in himself; and as he stood 
there he flushed in a struggle of compassion, at- 
traction, revulsion, pity, and cruel disappoint- 
ment. Those tears coming just then relieved 
Anne Bellingham's heavy heart as they flowed 
in a passionate stream, and at the same time 
they quenched many a youthful fire, destroyed 
in their track many a dream of battle and vie- 



200 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



tory, of persevering struggle and courageous ef- 
forts for the rights of the wronged upon earth. 
They changed the course of Trevithic's life at 
the time, though in the end, perhaps, who shall 
say that it was greatly altered by the complain- 
ings and foolish fondness of this poor soul whom 
he was now trying to quiet and comfort ? I, 
for my part, don't believe that people are so 
much affected by circumstance in the long run 
as some people would have it. We think it a 
great matter that we turned to the right or the 
left; but both paths go over the hill. Jack, as 
his friends called him, had determined to leave 
a certain little beaten track of which he was 
getting weary, and he had come up to say good- 
bye to a friend of his, and to tell her that he was 
going, and this was the result. 

She went on crying — she could not help her- 
self now. She was a fragile-looking little thing, 
a year or so younger than Jack, her spiritual 
curate and future husband, whom she had now 
known for two years. 

"You see there is nothing particular for me 
to do here," he stammered, blushing. "A 
great strong fellow like myself ought to be put- 
ting his shoulder to the wheel." 

" I — I had so hoped that you had been hap- 
py here with us," said Miss Bellingham. 

" Of course I have been happy — happier than 
I have ever been in my life," said Jack, with 
some feeling; "and I shall never forget your 
kindness ; but the flict is, I have been too happy. 
Tliis is a little haven where some worn-out old 
veteran might recruit and grow young again in 
your kind keeping. It's no place for a raw re- 
cruit like myself." 

" Oh, think — oh, think of it again," faltered 
Anne. " Please change your mind. We would 
try and make it less— less worldly— more like 
what you wish." 

"No, dear lady," said Trevithic, half smiling, 
half sighing. " You are goodness and kindness 
itself, but I must be consistent, I'm afraid. No- 
body wants me hei-e; I may be of use else- 
where, and .... Oh Miss Bellingham, don't — 
don't — pr.ay don't — " 

"You know — you know you are wanted here, " 
cried Miss Bellingham ; and the momentous 
tears began to flow again down her cheeks all un- 
checked, though she put up her fingers to hide 
them. She was standing by a table, a slim 
creature, in a white' dress. " Oh, forgive me !" 
she sobbed, and she put out one tear-washed 
hand to him, and then she pushed him away 
with her weak violence, and went and flung her- 
self down into her father's big chair, and leaned 
against the old red cushion in an agony of grief 
and shame and despair. Her little dog began 
barking furiously at John, and her bird began 
to sing, and all the afternoon sun was stream- 
ing and blinding into the room. 

"Oh, don't, don't despise me!" moaned the 
poor thing, putting up her weary hand to her 
head. The action was so helpless, the voice so 
pathetic, that Trevithic resisted no longer. 

" Despise you, my poor darling," said John, 



I utterly melted and overcome, and he stooped 
over, and took the poor little soul into his arms. 
"I see," he said, "that we two must never be 
parted again, and if I go, you must come with 

1 me " 

It was done. It was over. When Jack 
dashed back to his lodging, it was in a state of 
excitement so great that he had hardly time to 
ask himself whether it was for the best or the 
worst. The tears of the trembling appealing 
little quivering figure had so unnerved him, so 
touched and aff"ccted him, that he had hardly 

! known what he said or what he did not say, his 
pity and innate tenderness of heart had carried 

' him away; it was more like a mother than a 
lover that he took this poor little fluttering bird 
into his keeping, and vowed and prayed to keep it 
safe. But every thing was vague and new and 
unlifelike as yet. The future seemed floating 
with shadows and vibi'ations, and waving and 
settling into the present. He had left home a 
free man, with a career before him, without ties 
to clieck him or to hold him back (except, indeed, 
the poor old mother in her little house at Bar- 
fleet, but that clasp was so slight, so gentle, so 
unselfish, that it could scarcely be counted one 
now). And now " Chained and bound by the 
ties of our sins," sometiiing kept dinning in his 
bewildered brain. 

Mrs. Bazley opened the door with her usual 
grin of welcome, and asked him if he had lunch- 
ed, or if she should bring up the tray. Trevithic 
shook his head, and brushed past her up the 
stairs, leaping three or four at a time, and he 
dashed into his own room and banged the door, 
and went and leaned against the wall, with his 
hand to his head, in a dizzy, sickened, miserable 
bewilderment, at which he himself was shocked 
and frightened. What had he done, what 
would this lead to ? He paced up and down 
his room until he could bear it no longer, and 
then he went back to the rectoi-y. Anne had 
been watching for him, and came out to meet 
him, and slid ker jealous hand in his arm. 

" Come away," she whispered. " There are 
some people in the house. Mary Myles is there 
talking to papa. I have not told him yet. I 
can't believe it enough to tell any one." 

John could hardly believe it either, or that 
this was the Miss Bellingham he had known 
hitherto. She seemed so dear, so changed, this 
indolent county beauty, this calm young mis- 
tress of the house, now bright, quick, excited, 
moved to laughter : a liundred sweet tints and 
colors seemed awakened and brought to light 
which he had never noticed or suspected before. 
" I have a reason, " Anne went on. " I want 
you to speak of this to no one but me and papa. 
I will tell you very soon, perhaps to-morrow. 
Here, come and sit under the lilac-tree, and tlien 
they can not see us from the drawing-room." 

Anne's reason was this, that the rector of a 
living in her father's gift was dying, but she was 
not sure that Jack would be content to wait for 
a dead man's shoes, and she gave him no hint 
of a scheme she had made. 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



201 



The news of John's departure spread very 
quickly, but that of his engagement was only 
suspected ; and no allusion to his approaching 
marriage was made when the teapot was pre- 
sented to him in state. 

I have ventured to christen my hero Jack, af- 
ter a celebrated champion of that name ; but 
we all know how the giant-killer himself fell 
asleep in the forest soon after he received the 
badge of honor and distinction to which he was 
so fairly entitled. Did poor John Trevithic, 
now the possessor of the teapot of honor, fall 
asleep thus early on his travels and forget all 
his hopes and his schemes ? At first, in the 
natural excitement of his engagement, he put 
off one plan and another, and wrote to delay his 
application for the chaplaincy of the work-house. 
He had made a great sacrifice for Anne ; for he 
was not in love with her, as lie knew from the 
very beginning ; but he soon fell into the habit 
of caring for her and petting her, and, little by 
little, her devotion and blind partiality seemed 
to draw him nearer and nearer to the new ways 
he had accepted. The engagement gave great 
satisfaction. Hambledon shook him warmly by 
the hand, and said something about a better vo- 
cation than Bumbledom and woi'k-houses. Jack 
bit his li])s. It was a sore point with him, and 
he could not bear to think of it. 

How Anne had begged and prayed and insist- 
ed, and put up her gentle hands in entreaty, 
when he had proposed to take her to live at 
Hammersley. 

"It would kill me," she said. "Oh John, 
there is something much better, much more use- 
ful for you coming in a very little while. I 
wanted j^eople to hear of our marri.age and of 
our new home together. Poor old Mr. Jorken 
is dead. Papa is going to give us his Lincoln- 
shire living; it is his very own. Are you too 
proud to take any thing from me, to whom "you 
have given your life ?" And her wistful en- 
treaties were not without their effect, as she 
clung to him with her strange jealous eagerness. 
The determined young fellow gave in again and 
again. He had fallen into one of those moods 
of weakness and irresolution of which one has 
heard even among the fiercest and boldest of 
heroes. It was so great a sacrifice to him to 
give up his dreams that it never occurred to him 
for a moment that he was deserting his flag. It 
was a strange transformation which had come 
over tliis young fellow, of which the least part 
was being married. 

I don't know whether the old ladies were dis- 
appointed or not that he did not actually go 
away as soon as was expected. The announce- 
ment of his marriage, however, made up for 
every thing else, and they all attended the cere- 
mony. Mr. and Mrs. Trevithic went away for 
their honey-moon, and to see old Mrs. Trevith- 
ic at Barfleet, and then they came back to the 
rectory until the house in Lincolnshire should 
be ready to receive them. 

For some time after his marriage Jack could 
hardly believe that so great an event had come 



about so easily. Nothing was much changed ; 
the port-wine twinkled in the same decanters, 
the old rector dozed off in his chair after din- 
ner, the sunset streamed into the dining-room 
from the same gap in the trees which skirted 
the churchyard. Anne, in the drawing-room in 
her muslins and lilac ribbons, sewed her worsted 
work in the corner by the window, or strummed 
her variations on the piano-forte. Tumty tinkle 
tumty — no — tinkle tumty tumty, as she correct- 
ed herself at the same place in the same song. 
" Do you know the songs without words?" she 
used to say to him when he first came. Know 
them ! At the end of six weeks poor Jack could 
have told you every note of the half-dozen songs 
which Anne had twittered out so often, only she 
put neither song nor words to the notes, nor 
time, nor any thing but pedals and fingers. One 
of these she was specially fond of playing. It 
begins with a few tramping chords, and climbs 
on to a solemn blast that might be sounded in a 
cathedral or at the triumphant funeral of a war- 
rior dying in victory. Anne had taken it into 
her head to play this with expression, and to 
drag out the crisp chords — some of them she 
thought sounded prettier in a higher octave — 
and then she would look up with an archly af- 
fectionate smile as she finished. Jack used to 
respond with a kind little nod of the head at 
first, but he could not admire his wife's playing, 
and he wished she would mind her music and 
not be thinking of herself and nodding at him 
all the time. Had he promised to stuff up his 
ears with cotton-wool and to act fibs at the al- 
tar? He didn't know; he rather thought he 
had — he — psha ! Where was that number of 
the North British Rerieiv ? and the young man 
went off into his study to look for ft and to es- 
cape from himself. 

Poor Jack ! He dimlj' felt now and then 
that all his life he should have to listen to tunes 
such as these, and be expected to beat time to 
them. Like others before and since, he began 
to feel that what one expects and what is expect- 
ed of one are among the many impossible con- 
ditions of life. You don't get it and you don't 
give it, and you never will as long as you live, 
except, indeed, when Heaven's sacred fire of 
love comes to inspire and teach you to do un- 
consciously and gladly what is clearer and near- 
er and more grateful than the result of hours of 
straining effort and self-denial. 

But these hours were a long way off as yet, 
and Jack was still asking himself how much 
longer it would all last, and how could it be 
that he was here settled for life and a married 
man, and that that pale little woman with the 
straight smooth light hair was his wife, and that 
fat old gentleman fast asleep, who had been his 
rector a few weeks ago, was his father-in-law 
now, while all the world went on as usual, and 
nothing had changed except the relations of 
these three people to each other ? 

Poor Jack ! He had got a treasure of a wife, 
I suppose. Anne Bellingham had ruled at the 
rectory for twenty-four years with a calm, des- 



202 



FIVE OLD FEIENDS. 



potic sway that old Mr. Bellinirliam never at- 
tempted to dispute. Gentle, obstinate, ladylike, 
graceful, with a clear complexion, and one of 
those thin transparent noses wliich some people 
admire, she glided about in her full flitting skirts, 
feeling herself the prop and elegant comforter 
of her father's declining years. She used to 
put rosebuds into his study ; and though old 
Mr. Bellingham didn't care for flowers, and dis- 
liked any thing upon his table, he never thought 
of removing the slender glass fabric his daugh- 
ter's white fingers had so carefully ornamented. 
She took care that clean muslin covers, with 
neat little bows at each corner, sliould duly suc- 
ceed one another over tlie back of the big study- 
cliair. It is true the muslin scratched Mr. 
Bellingham's bald head, and he once ventured 
to remove the objectionable pinafore with his 
careful, clumsy old fingers ; but next day he 
found it was firmly and neatly stretched down 
in its place again, and it was beyond his skill 
to unpick the threads. Anne also took care 
that her father's dressing-things should be put 
out for dinner ; and if the poor old gentleman 
delayed or tried to evade the ceremony, tlie 
startled man who cleaned the plate and waited 
upon the family was instructed to tell his mas- 
ter that the dressing-bell had rung: housemaids 
came in to tidy the room ; windows were open- 
ed to renew the air : the poor rector could only 
retire and do as he was Lid. How Anne had 
managed all. her life to get her own way in every 
tiling is more than I can explain. It was a very 
calm, persistent, commonplace way, but every 
one gave in to it. And so it happened that as soon 
as Jack was her husband, Anne expected that 
he was to change altogether ; see with her pink, 
watery eye^ ; care for tlie things she cared for ; 
and be content henceforth with her mild aspira- 
tions after county society in tliis world, and a 
good position in tlie next. Anne imagined, in 
some vague manner, that these were both good 
things to be worked out together by punctuality 
on Sundays, family prayer, a certain amount of 
attention to the neighbors (varying, of course, 
with the position of the persons in question), 
and due regard for the decencies of life. To 
see her rustling into church in her long silk 
dress and French bonnet, with her smooth bands 
of hair, the slender hands neatly gloved, and 
the prayer-book, hymn-book, pocket-handker- 
chief, and smelling-bottle, all her little phylac- 
teries in their places, was an examjile to the 
neighborhood — to the vulgar Christians strag- 
gling in from the lodging-houses and the town, 
and displaying their flyaway hats or highly po- 
matumed heads of hair ; to the little charity 
children, gaping at her over the wooden gal- 
lery ; to St. Mary Magdalene up in the window, 
with her tangled locks ; to Mrs. Coote herself, 
who always came in late, with her four little 
girls tumbling over her dress and shuffling after 
her ; not to mention Tre^'ithic himself, up in his 
reading-desk, leaning back in his chair. For 
the last six months, in the excitement of his 
presence, in the disturbance of her usual equa- 



ble frame of mind, it was scarcely the real 
Anne Bellingham he had known, or maybe, per- 
haps, it ivas the real woman stirred out of her 
Philistinism by the great tender hand of nature 
and the wonderful inspiration of love. Now, 
day by day her old ways began to grow upon 
her. Jack had not been married three weeks 
before a sort of terror began quietly to over- 
whelm him, a terror of his wife's genteel infal- 
libility. As for Anne, she had got what she 
wanted ; she had cried for the moon, and it was 
hers ; and she, too, began almost immediately 
to feel that now she had got it she did not know 
what to do with it exactly. She wanted it to 
turn the other way, and it wouldn't go — always 
to rise at the same hour, and it seemed to 
change day by day on purpose to vex her. 

And then she cried again, poor woman ; but 
her tears were of little avail. I suppose Jack 
was very much to blame, and certainly at this 
time his popularity declined a little, and people 
shrugged their shoulders and said he was a 
lucky young fellow to get a pretty girl and a 
good living and fifteen thousand pounds in one 
morning, and that he had feathered his nest 
well. And so he had, poor fellow, only too 
well, for to be sunk in a moral feather-bed is 
not the most enviable of fates to an active- 
minded man of six or seven and twenty. 

The second morning after their return, Anne 
had dragged him out to her favorite lilac-tree 
bench upon the height in the gai-den, from 
whence you can see all the freshness of the 
morning brightening from bay to bay, green 
close at hand, salt wave and more green down 
below, busy life on land, and a flitting, drifting, 
white-sailed life upon the water. As Trevithic 
looked at it all with a momentary admiration, 
his wife said : — 

"Isn't it much nicer to be up here with me, 
John, than down in those horrid lodgings in the 
town ?" 

And John laughed, and said, "Yes, the air 
was very delicious." 

"You needn't have worked so hard at that 
draining if you had been living up here," Anne 
went on, quite unconsciously. " I do believe one 
might live forever in this place and never get 
any harm from those miserable dens. I hear 
there is small-pox in Mark's Alley. Promise 
me, dear, that you will not go near them." 

"I am afraid I must go if they M-ant me," 
said John. 

"No, dearest," Anne said, gently. "Yon 
have to think of me first now. It would lie 
wrong of you to go. Papa and I have never 
had the small-pox." 

Trevithic didn't answer. As his wife spoke, 
something else spoke too. The little boats glit- 
tered and scudded on ; the whole sight was as 
sweet and prosperous as it had been a minute 
before; but he was not looking at it any more; 
a strange new feeling had seized hold of him, a 
devil of sudden growth, and Trevithic was so 
little used to self-contemplation and inner ex- 
perience, that it shocked him and frightened 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



203 



him to find himself standing there calmly talking 
to his wife — without any quarrel, angry in his 
heart ; without any separation, parted from her. 

"Anne and I could not be farther apart at 
this instant," thought John, "if I were at the 
other side of that sea, and she standing here all 
alone." 

" What is the matter?" said poor Anne, af- 
fectionately brushing a little thread off his coat. 

"Can't you understand?" said he, drawing 
away. 

" Understand ?" Anne repeated. "I know 
that you are nauglity, and want to do what you 
must not think of." 

"I thought that when I married you, yon 
cared for the things that I care about," cried 
poor John, exasperated by her playfulness, ' ' and 
that you understood that a man must do his busi- 
ness in life, and that marriage does not absolve 
him from every other duty. I thought you cared 
— you said you did — for the poor people in trou- 
ble down there." Then, melting, "Don't make 
it difficult for me to go to them, dear." 

" No. dear John. I could not possibly allow 
it," said his wife, decidedly. "You are not a 
doctor ; it is not your business to nurse small- 
pox patients. Papa never thinks of going where 
there is infection." 

"My dear Anne," said John, fairly out of 
temper, "nobody ever thought your father had 
done his duty by the place, and you must allow 
your husband to go his own way, and not inter- 
fere any more." 

" It is very, very wrong of you, John, to say 
such things," said Anne, flushing, and speaking 
very slowly and gently. "You forget yourself 
and me too, I think, when you speak so coarsely. 
You should begin your reforms at home, and 
learn to control your temper before you go and 
preach to people with dreadful illnesses. They 
can not ))ossibly want you, or be in a fit state to 
be visited." 

If Anne had only lost her temper, flared up at 
him, talked nonsense, he could have borne it bet- 
ter; but there she stood, quiet, composed, in- 
finitely his superior in her perfect self-posses- 
sion. Jack left her, all ashamed of himself, in 
a fume and a fury, as he strode down into the 
town. 

The small-pox turned out to be a false alarm, 
spread by some ingenious parishioners who wish- 
ed for relief and who greatly disliked the visits 
of the excellent district ladies, and the matter 
was compromised. But that afternoon Miss 
Triquett, meeting John in the street, gave a pen- 
etrating and searching glance into his face. He 
looked out of spirits. Miss Triquett noticed it 
directly, and her heart, whicli had been some- 
what hardened against him, melted at once. 

Jack and his wife made it up. Anne relented, 
and something of her better self brought her to 
meet him half-way. Once more the strange ac- 
customed feeling came to him, on Sundays es- 
pecially. Old Billy Hunsden came cloppeting 
into church just as usual. There was the clerk, 
with his toothless old warble joining in with the 



chirp of the charity-school children. ' The three 
rows of grinning little faces were peering at him 
from the organ-loft. There was the empty bencli 
at the top, where the mistress sat throned in state ; 
the marble rolled down in the middle of the sec- 
ond lesson, with all the children looking preter- 
naturally innocent and as if they did not hear the 
noise ; the old patches of color were darting upon 
the pulpit cushion from St^ Mary Magdalene's 
red scarf in the east window. These are all 
small things, but they have taken possession of 
my hero, who is preaching away, hardly know- 
ing wliat he says, but conscious of Anne's wist- 
ful gaze from the rectory pew, and of the curious 
eyes of all the old women in the free seats, who 
dearly love a timely word, and who have made 
up their minds to be stirred up that Sunday. It 
is not a bad sermon, but it is of things neither 
the preacher nor his congregation care very 
much to hear. 



CHAPTER IV. 



JACK GOES TO SLEEP IN THE WOOD. 

Featherston Vicarage was a quaint, drea- 
ry, silent old baked block of bricks and stucco, 
standing on one of those low Lincolnshire hil- 
lo.cks — I do not know the name for them . They 
are not hills, but mounds ; they have no shape or 
individuality, but they roll in on evdry side ; they 
inclose the horizon ; they stop the currents of 
fresh air ; they give no feature to the foreground. 
There was no reason why the vicarage should 
have been built upon this one, more than upon 
any other of the monotonous waves of the dry 
ocean of land which spreads and spreads about 
Featherston, unchanging in its monotonous line. 
To look from the upper windows of the vicarage 
is like looking out at sea, with nothing but the 
horizon to watch — a dull sand-and-dust horizon, 
with monotonous waves and lines that do not even 
change or blend like the waves of tlie sea. 

Anne was delighted with the place when she 
first came. Of course it was not to compare 
with Sandsea for pleasantness and freshness, but 
the society was infinitely better. Not all the 
lodging-houses at Sandsea could supply such an 
eligible circle of acquaintances as that which 
came driving up day after day to the vicarage 
door. The carriages, after depositing their own- 
ers, would go champing up the road to the little 
tavern of ' ' The Five Horseshoes, " at the entrance 
of the village, in search of hay and beer for the 
horses and men. Anne in one afternoon enter- 
tained two honorables, a countess, and two Lady 
Louisas. The countess was Lady Kiddermin- 
ster and one of the Lady Louisas was her daugh- 
ter. The other was a nice old maid, a cousin of 
Mrs. IMyles, and she told Mrs. Trevithic some- 
thing more of poor Mary IMyle's married life than 
Anne had ever known before. 

"It is A-ery distressing," said Anne, with a 
ladylike volubility, as she walked across the lawn 
witii her guest to the carriage, "when married 



204 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



people do not get on comfortably together. De- 
pend upon it, there are generally faults on both 
sides. I dare say it is very uncharitable of me, 
but I generally think the woman is to blame when 
things go wrong," said Anne, with a little con- 
scious smirk. " Of course, we must be content 
to give up some tilings when we marry. Sand- 
sea was far pleasanter than this as a residence ; 
but where my husband's interests were con- 
cerned. Lady Louisa, I did not hesitate. I hope 
to get this into some order in time, as soon as I 
can persuade Mr. Trevithic . . . ." 

"You are quite right, quite right," said Lady 
Louisa, looking round approvingly at the grass- 
grown walks and straggling hedges. " Although 
Mary is my own cousin, I always felt that she 
did not understand poor Tom. Of course, he 
had his little fidgety ways like the rest of us." 

(Mary had never described her husband's lit- 
tle fidgety ways to any body at much length, and 
if brandy and blows and oaths were among them, 
these trifles were forgotten now that Tom was 
respectably interred in the family vault and be- 
yond reproaches.) 

Lady Louisa went away favorably impressed 
by young Mrs. Trevithic's good sense and high- 
mindedness. Anne, too, was very much pleased 
with her afternoon. She went and took a com- 
placent turn in her garden after the old lady's 
departure. She hardly knew where the little 
paths led to as yet, nor the look of the fruit-walls 
and of the twigs against the sky, as people do 
who have well paced their garden-walks in rain, 
wind, and sunshine, in spirits and disquiet, at 
odd times and sad times and happy ones. It 
was all new to Mrs. Trevithic, and she glanced 
about as she went, planning a rose-tree here, a 
creeper there, a clearance among the laurels. 
"I must let in a peep of the church through 
that elm-clump, and plant some fuchsias along 
that bank," she thought. (Anne was fond of 
fuchsias.) "And John must give me a hen-house. 
The cook can tend to that. The place looks 
melancholy and neglected without any animals 
about; we must certainly buy a pig. What a 
very delightful person Lady Kidderminster is ; 
she asked me what sort of carriage we meant to 
to keep — I should think with economy we rmtjht 
manage a pair. I shall get John to leave every 
thing of that sort to me. I shall give him so 
much for his pocket-money and charities, and do 
the very best I can with the rest." And Anne 
sincerely meant it when she made this determi- 
nation, and walked along better pleased than ever, 
feeling that with her hand to pilot it along the 
tortuous way their ship could not run aground, 
but would come straight and swift into the haven 
of country society, for wliich they were making, 
drawn by a couple of j)rancing hoi-ses, and a 
riding-horse possibly for John. And seeing her 
husband coming through the gate and crossing 
the sloping lawn, Anne hurried to meet him 
with glowing pink cheeks and tips to her eyelids 
and nose, eager to tell him her schemes and ad- 
ventures. 

Trevithic himself had come home tired and 



dispirited, and he could scarcely listen to his 
wife's chirrups with very great sympathy or en- 
couragement. 

"Lady Kidderminster wishes us to set up a 
carriage and a pair of horses !" poor Trevithic 
cried out aghast. "Why, my dear Anne, you 
must be — must be .... What do you imagine 
our income to be?" 

"I know very well what it is," Anne said, 
with a nod ; "better than you do, sir. With 
care and economy a very great deal is to be done. 
Leave every thing to me, and don't trouble your 
foolish old head." 

"But, my dear, you must listen for one min- 
ute," Trevithic said. " One thousand a year is 
not limitless. There are calls and drains upon 
our incomings — " 

" That is' exactly what I Avanted to speak to 
you about, John, " said his wife, gravely. ' ' For 
one thing, I have been thinking that your moth- 
er has a very comfortable income of her own," 
Anne said, " and I am sure she would gladly . . ." 

"I have no doubt she would," Trevithic in- 
terrupted, looking full in his wife's face ; "and 
that is the reason that I desire the subject may 
never be alluded to again, either to her or to 
me." lie looked so decided and stern, and his 
gray eagle eyes opened wide in a way his wife 
knew that meant no denial. Vexed as she was, 
she could not help a momentary womanly feel- 
ing of admiration for the undaunted and decid- 
ed rule of the governor of this small kingdom in 
which she was vicegerent ; she felt a certain 
pride in her husband, not in what was best in his 
temper and heart, but in the outward signs that 
any one might read. His good looks, his manly 
bearing, his determination before which she had 
to give way again and again, impressed her odd- 
ly ; she followed him with her eyes as he walk- 
ed away into the house, and went on with her 
calculations as she still paced the gravel path, de- 
termining to come back secretly to the charge, as 
was her way, from another direction, perhaps fail- 
ing and again only to ponder upon afresh attack. 

And meanwhile Anne was tolerably happy 
trimming her rose-trees, and arranging and re- 
arranging the furniture, visiting at the big houses, 
and corresponding with her friends, and playing 
on the piano, and with her baby, in time, when 
it came to live with them in the vicarage. Trev- 
ithic was tolerably miserable, fuming and con- 
suming his days in a restless, impatient search 
for the treasures which did not exist in the arid 
fields and lanes round about the vicarage. He 
certainly discovered a few well-to-do farmers rid- 
ing about their inclosures on their rough horses, 
and responding with surly nods to his good- 
humored advances; a few old women selling 
lollipops in their tidy front kitchens ; with shin- 
ing pots and pans, and starch caps, the very pic- 
tures of respectability; little tidy children trot- 
ting to school along the lanes, hand in hand, 
with all the strings on their pinafores, and hard- 
working mothers scrubbing their parlors, or 
hanging out their linen to dry. The cottages 
were few and flir between, for the farmers farm- 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



205 



ed immense territories ; the laborers were out in 
the fields at sunrise, and toiled all day, and stag- 
gered home worn out and stupefied at night ; 
the little pinafores released from school at mid- 
day would trot along the furrows with their fa- 
thers' and brothers' dinners tied up in bundles, 
and drop little frightened courtesies along the 
hedges when they met the vicar on his rounds. 
Dreary, dusty rounds they were — illimitable cir- 
cles. The country folks did not want his ser- 
mons, they were too stupid to understand what he 
said, they were too aimless and dispirited. Jack 
the Giant-Killer's sleep lasted exactly three years 
in Trevithic's case, during which the time did 
not pass, it only ceased to be. Once old Mr. 
Bellingham paid them a visit, and once Mrs. Trev- 
ithic, senior, arrived with her cap-boxes, and 
tlien every thing again went on as usual until 
Dulcie came to live with her father and mother 
in the old sun-baked, wasp-haunted place. 

Dulcie was a little portable almanac to mark 
the time for both of them, and the seasons and 
the hour of the day, some thing in this fashion: — 

Six months and Dulcie began to crawl across 
the druggeted floor of her father's study ; nine 
months to crow and hold out her arms ; a year 
must have gone by, for Dulcie was making sweet 
inarticulate chatterings and warblings, which 
changed into words by degrees — wonderful words 
of love and content and recognition, after her 
tiny lifelong silence. Dulcie's clock marked the 
time of day something in this fashion: — 

Dulcie's breakfast o'clock. 

Dulcie's walk in the garden o'clock. 

Dulcie's dinner o'clock. 

Dulcie's bedtime o'clock, etc. 

All the tenderness of Jack's heart was Dul- 
cie's. Her little fat fingers would come tapping 
and scratching at his study door long before she 
could walk. She was not in tiie least afraid of 
him, as her mother was sometimes. She did 
not care for his sad moods, nor sympathize with 
his ambitions, nor understand the pangs and 
pains he suffered, the regrets and wounded van- 
ities and aspirations. Was time passing, was 
he wasting his youth and strength, in that forlorn 
stagnantLincolnshire fen ? What was it to her? 
Little Dulcie thought that, when he crossed his 
legs and danced her on his foot, her papa was 
fulfilling all the highest duties of life ; and when 
she let him kiss her soft cheek, it did not occur 
to her that every wish of his heart was not grat- 
ified. Hard-hearted, unsympathetic, trustful, 
and appealing little comforter and companion ! 
Whatever it might be to Anne, not even Lady 
Kidderminster's society soothed and comforted 
Jack as Dulcie's did. This small Eg}-ptian was 
a hard task-mistress, for she gave him bricks to 
make without any straw, and kept him a prison- 
er in a land of bondage ; but for her he would 
have thrown up the work that was so insufficient 
for him, and crossed the Red Sea, and chanced 
the fortunes of life ; but with Dulcie and her 
mother hanging to the skirts of his long black 
clerical coat, how could he go! Ought he to 
go ? £400 a year is a large sum to get together, 



but a small one to provide for three people — so 
longas a leg of mutton costs seven shillings, and 
there are but twenty shillings in the pound and 
365 days in the year. 

It was a hot, sultry afternoon, the dust was 
lying thick upon the lanes, on the country roads, 
that went creeping away white in the glare to 
this and that distant sleepy hollow. The leaves 
in the hedges were hanging upon their stalks ; 
tlie convolvuluses and blackberries drooped their 
heads beneath the clouds that rose from the 
wreaths and piles of dust along the way. Four 
o'clock was striking from the steeple, and echo- 
ing through the hot still air ; nobody was to be 
seen, except one distant figure crossing a stub- 
ble-field ; the vicarage windows were close-shut- 
tered, but the gate was on the latch, and the 
big dog had just sauntered lazily through. Anne 
heard the clock strike from her darkened bed- 
room, where she was lying upon the sofa rest- 
ing. Dulcie, playing in her nursery, counted 
the strokes. " Tebben, two, one ; nonner one," 
that was how she counted. John heard the 
clock strike as he was crossing the dismal stub- 
ble-field ; every thing else was silent. Two 
butterflies went flitting before him in the deso- 
late glare. It was all so still, so dreary, and 
feverish, that he tried to escape into a shadier 
field, and to force his way through a gap in the 
parched hedge, regardless of farmer Burr's fences 
and restrictions. 

On the other side of the hedge there was a 
smaller field, a hollow with long grasses and nut- 
hedges and a little shade, and a ditch over whi«h 
Trevithic sprang with some remnant of youthful 
spirit. He sprang, breaking through the briers 
and countless twigs and limp-wreathed leaves, 
making a foot-standi-ng for himself among the 
lank grasses and dull autumn flowers on the 
other side, and as he sprang he caught a sight 
of something lying in the ditch, something with 
half-open lips and dim glazed eyes turned up- 
ward under the crossing diamond network of 
the shadow and light of the briers. 

What Avas this that was quite still, quite in- 
animate, lying in the sultry glow of the autumn 
day ? Jack turned a little sick, and leaped back 
down among the dead leaves, and stooped over 
a wan helpless figure lying there motionless and 
ghastly, with its head sunk back in the dust and 
tangled weeds. It was only a worn and mis- 
erable-looking old man, whose meek, starved, 
weary face was upturned to the sky, whose wan 
lips were drawn apart, and whose thin hands 
were clutching at the weeds. Jack gently tried 
to loosen the clutch, and the poor fingers gave 
way in an instant and fell helplessly among the 
grasses, frightening a field-mouse back into its 
hole. But this helpless, loose foil first 'gave 
Trevithic some idea of life in the hopeless fig- 
ure, for all its wan rigid lines. He put his hand 
under the rags which covered the breast. There 
was no pulse at first, but presently the heart 
just fluttered, and a little color came into the 
pale face, and there was a long sigh, and then 
the glazed eyes closed. 



20G 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



John set to work to rub the cold hands and 
the stiff body. It was all he could do, for peo- 
ple don't walk about with bottles of brandy and 
blankets in their pockets ; but he rubbed and 
rubbed, and some of the magnetism of his own 
vigorous existence seemed to enter into the poor 
spul at his knees, and another faint flush of life 
came into the face, and the eyes opened this 
time naturally and briglit, and the figure point- 
ed faintly to its lips. Jack understood, and he 
nodded ; gave a tug to the man's shoulders, and 
])roppcd him up a little higher against the bank. 
Then he tied his handkerchief round the poor 
old bald head to protect it from the sun, and 
sprang up tiie side of the ditch. He had re- 
membered a turnpike upon the highway, two or 
three iiundred yards beyond the boundary of 
the next field. 

Laily Kidderminster, who happened to be 
driving along that afternoon on her way to the 
Potlington flower-show, and who was leaning 
back comfortably under the hood of her great 
yellow barouche, was surprised to see from un- 
der the fringe of her parasol the figure of a man 
suddenly bursting through a hedge on the road- 
side, and waving a hat and shouting, red, heated, 
disordered, frantically signing to the coachman 
to stop. 

" It's a Fenian !" screamed her ladyship. 

'_'I think — yes, it's Mr. Trevithic," said her 
companion. 

The coachman, too, had recognized Jack, and 
began to draw up ; but the young man, wlio had 
now reached the side of the carriage, signed to 
him to go on. 

"Will you give me a lift ?" he said, gasping 
and springing on to the step. " How d'ye do, 
Lady Kidderminster ? I heard your wheels and 
made an effort," and Jack 'turned rather pale. 
"There is a poor fellow dying in a ditch. I 
want some brandy for him and some help ; stop 
at the turnpike," he shouted to the coachman, 
and tlien he turned with very good grace to La- 
dy Kidderminster, aghast and not over pleased. 
"Pray forgive me," he said. " It was such a 
chance catciiing you. I never thought I should 
have done it. I was two fields off". Why, how 
d'ye do, Mrs. Miles?" And still holding on to 
the yellow barouche by one hand, he put out 
the other to his old acquaintance, Mary Miles, 
with the still kind eyes, who was sitting in state 
by tiie countess. 

"You will take me back, and the brandy, I 
know?" said Trevithic. 

" Is it any body one knoAvs ?" said the count- 
ess. 

"Only some tramp," said Jack; "but it's a 
mercy I met you." And before they reached 
the turnpike, he had jumped down, and was ex- 
plaining his wants to the bewildered old chip 
of a woman who collected the tolls. 

" Your husband not here ? a pity," said John. 
" Give me his brandy-bottle ; it will be of some 
good for once." And he disappeared into the 
lodge, saying, "Would you please have the 
horses' heads turned. Lady Kidderminster ?" In 



a minute he was out again. "Here, put this 
in " (to the powdered footman), and Jolin thrust 
a blanket off the bed, an old three-legged chair, a 
wash-jug full of water, and one or two more mis- 
cellaneous objects into the man's arms. " Now 
back again," he said, "as quick as you can." 
And he jumped in with his brandy ; and the 
great barouche groaned, and at his command 
actually sped oft' once more along the road. 
"Make haste," said Trevithic; "the man is 
dying for want of a dram." 

The sun blazed hot in their fiices. The foot- 
man sat puzzled and disgusted on his perch, 
clasping the blanket and the water-jug. Lady 
Kidderminster was not sure that she was not of- 
fended by all the orders Mr. Trevithic was giv- 
ing lier servants ; Mrs. Miles held the three-leg- 
ged chair up on the seat opposite with her slen- 
der wrist, and looked kind and sympathetic; 
John hardly spoke — he was thinking what would 
be best to do next. 

" I am so sorry," he said, "but I am afraid 
you must wait for us, Lady Kidderminster. I'll 
bring him up as soon as I can, and we will drop 
him at the first cottage. You see nobody else 
may pass for hours." 

"SVe sliall be very late for our fl — " Lady 
Kidderminster began, faintly, and then stopped 
ashamed at the look in Trevithic's honest face 
which she saw reflected in Mrs. Myles's eyes. 

"Oh my dear Lady Kidderminster," cried 
Mrs. Myles, bending forward from her nest of 
white muslins. "We must wait." 

" Of course we will wait," said Lady Kidder- 
minster, hastily, as the coachman stopped at 
the gap through which Jack had first made his 
appearance. Trevithic was out in an instant. 

" Bring those things quick," said Jack to the 
magnificent powder-and-plush man ; and he set 
off running himself as hard as he could go, with 
his brandy-flask in one hand and the water-jug 
in the other. 

For an instant the man, hesitated and looked 
at his mistress, but Lady Kidderminster had 
now caught something of Mr. Trevithic's energy : 
she imperiously pointed to the three-legged 
chair, and Tomlins, who was good-natured in 
the main, seeing Jack's figure rapidly disap- 
pearing in the distance, began to run too, with 
his silken legs j)lunging wildly, for pumps and 
stubble are not th.e most comfortable of combi- 
nations. When Tomlins reached the ditch at 
last. Jack was pouring old Glossop's treacle-like 
brandy down the poor gasping tramp's tliroat, 
dasliing water into his face and gradually bring- 
ing him to life again ; the sun was streaming 
upon the two, the insects buzzing, and the church 
clock striking the half-hour. 

There are combinations in life more extraor- 
dinary tiian pumps and plougiied fields. When 
Trevithic and Tomlins staggered up to tlie car- 
riage carrying the poor old ragged, half-lifeless 
creature on tiie chair between them, the two be- 
satined and be-feathered ladies made way and 
helped them to put poor helpless old Davy Hop- 
kins with all his rags into the soft-cushioned 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



207 



corner, and drove off witli him in triumph to the 
little public at the entrance of Featherston, 
where they left him. 

" You have saved that man's life," said Jack, 
as he said good-bye to the two ladies. They 
left him standing glad and excited, in the mid- 
dle of the road, with bright eyes and more ani- 
mation and interest in his face than there had 
been for many a day. 

"My dear Jack, what is this I hear?" said 
Anne, when he got home. "Have you been 
to the flower-show with Lady Kidderminster ? 
Who was that in the carriage with her ? What 
a state you are in !" 

Jack told her his story, but Mrs. Trevithic 
scarcely listened. " Oh !" said she, "I thought 
you had been doing something pleasant. Mrs. 
Myles was very kind. It seems to me rather a 
fuss about nothing, but, of course, you know 
best." 

Little Dulcie saw her father looking vexed ; 
she climbed up his leg and got on his knee, and 
put her round soft cheek against his. " Sail I 
luboo ?" said she. 



CHAPTER V. 

BLUNDEEEORE AND HIS TWO HEADS. 

When Jack went to see his jnvter/e next day, 
he found the old man sitting up in the bar warm- 
ing his toes, and finishing oft" a basin of gruel 
and a tumbler of porter with which the land- 
lady had supplied him. Mrs. Tenfold was a fro- 
zen sort of woman, difficult to deal with, but 
kind-hearted when tlie thaw once set in, and 
though at first slie had all but refused to receive 
poor old Davy into her house, having relented 
and opened her door to him, she had warmed and 
comforted him, and brought him to life in tri- 
umph, and now looked upon him with a certain 
self-contained pride and satisfaction as a favora- 
ble specimen of lier art. 

"Hc'sriglit eno','' said Mrs. Penfold, with a 
jerk of the head. " Ye can go in and see him 
in the bar." And Jack went in. 

The bar was a comfortable little oaken refuge 
and haven for Miles and Hodge, where they 
stretched their stiff legs safe from the scoldings 
of their wives and the shrill cries of their chil- 
dren. The shadows of the sunny-latticed win- 
dow struck upon tiie wooden floor, the fire burnt 
most part of the year on the stone hearth, where 
the dry branches and logs were crackling cheer- 
fully, with a huge black kettle hissing upon the 
bars. Some one had christened it " Tom," and 
from its crooked old spout at any hour of the 
day a hot and sparkling stream went flowing 
into the smoking grog-glasses, and intoPenfold's 
punch-pots and Mrs. Penfold's tea-cups and soup- 
pans. 

Davy's story was a common one enough — a 
travelling umbrella-mender — hard times — fine 
weather, umbrellas to mend, and "parasols ain't 
no good; so cheap they are," he said, with a 



shake of the head ; " they ain't worth the mend- 
in'." Then an illness, and then the work-house, 
and that was all his history. 

"I ain't sorry I come out of the 'ouse ; the 
ditch was the best place of the two," said Davy. 
" You picked me out of the ditch; you'd have 
left me in the 'ouse, sir, all along with the ruck. 
I don't blame ye," Davy said ; " I see'd ye there 
for the first time when I was wnss off than 1 ever 
hope to be in this life again ; ye looked me full 
in the face, and talked on with them two after 
ye — devil take them, and he ^^ill." 

"I don't remember you," said John. "Where 
was it ?" 

" Hammersley Workus," said Davy. " Don't 
you remember Hammersley Union ? I was in 
the bed under the winder, and I says to my 
pardner (there were two on us), says I — 'That 
chap looks as if he might do us a turn.' 'Not 
he,' says my pai-dner. ' They are werry charita- 
ble, and come and stare at us; that's all,' says 
he, and he was right you see, sir. He'd been 
in five years come Christmas, and knew more 
about it than I did then." 

"And you have left now?" said Trevithic, 
with a strange expression of pity in his face. 

" So I 'ave, sir, I'm bound to say," said Davy, 
finishing oflf his porter, "and I'd rather die in 

the ditch any day than go back to that d 

place." 

" It looked clean and comfortable enough," 
said Trevithic. 

" Clean, comfirable !" said Davy. "Do you 
think J minds a little dirt, sir ? Did you look 
under the quilts ? Why, the vermin was a run- 
ning all over the place like flies, so it were. It 
come dropping from the ceiling ; and my pard- 
ner he were paralytic, and he used to get me to 
wipe the bugs oflf liis face with a piece of paper. 
Shall I tell ye what it was like ?" And old Davy, 
in his ire, be;:an a history so horrible, so sick- 
ening, that Trevithic flushed up as he listened — 
an honest flush and fire of shame and indigna- 
tion. 

" I tell you fairly I don't believe half you 
say," said Jack, at last. "It is too horrible 
and unnatural." 

"True there," said Davy, comforted by his 
jjorter and his gruel. " It ain't no great matter 
to me if you believes 'arf or not, sir. I'm out 
of that hole, and I ain't agoin' back. Maybe 
your good lady has an umbrella wants seeing 
to ; shall I call round and ask this afternoon, 
sir?" 

Jack nodded and said he might come if he 
liked, and went home, thinking over tlie history 
he had heard. It was one of all tlie histories 
daily told in the sunshine, of deeds done in 
darkness. It was one grain of seed falling into 
the ground and taking root. Jack felt a dull 
feeling of shame and sadness; an uncomforta- 
ble pricking as of a conscience which has been 
benumbed ; a sudden pain of remorse, as he 
walked along the dusty lane which led to the 
vicarage. He found his wife in the drawing- 
room, writing little scented notes to some of her 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



new friends, and accepting proffered dinners and 
teas and county hospitalities. Little Dulcie was 
lying on her back on a rug, and crooning and 
chattering ; the shutters were closed ; there was 
a whiff of roses and scented water. Coming in 
from the baking lanes, it was a pleasant contrast, 
a pretty home picture, all painted in cool whites 
and grays and shadows, and yet it had by de- 
grees grown intolerable to him. Jack looked 
round, and up and down, and then with a sud- 
den impulse he went up and took his wife's hand, 
and looked her full in the face. " Anne," he 
said, "could you give up something for me — 
something, every thing, except what is yours as 
a right ? Dear, it is all so nice, but I am very 
unhappy here. May I give up this pretty home, 
and will you come and live with me where we 
can be of more use than we are here ?" He 
looked so kind and so imploring that for an in- 
stant Anne almost gave way and agreed to any 
thing. There was a bright constraining power 
in Jack's blue eye whicli liad to deal with mag- 
netism, I believe, and which his wife was one 
of the few people to resist. She recovered her- 
self almost immediately. 

"How ridiculous you are, John!" she said, 
pettishly. " Of course I will do any thing in 
reason ; but it seems to me very wrong and un- 
natural and ungrateful of you," said Mrs. Trev- 
ithic, encouraging herself as she went on, "not 
to be hap])y when you have so much to be 
thankful for; and though, of course, I should 
be the last to allude to it, yet I do think when 
I have persuaded papa to appoint you to this 
excellent living, considering how young you 
are and how much you owe to him, it is not 
(jraceftd, to say the least, on your ]iart . . . ." 

John turned away and caught up little Dul- 
cie, and began tossing her in the air. " Well," 
said he, " we won't discuss this now. I have 
made up my mind to take a week's holiday," 
he added, with a sort of laugh. "I am going 
to stay with Frank Austin till Saturday. Will 
you tell them to pack up my things?" 

" But, my dear, we are engaged to the 
Kidd . . . ." 

"You must write and make my excuses," 
Jack said, wearily. " I must go, I have some 
business at Haramersley." And he left the 
room. 

Chances turn out so strangely at times that 
some people — women especially, who live quiet- 
ly at home and speculate upon small matters — 
look on from afar and wonder among them- 
selves as they mark the extraordinary chain- 
work of minute stitches by which the mighty 
machinery of the world works on. Men who 
are busy and about, here and there in life, are 
more apt to take things as they find them, and 
do not stop to speculate how this or that comes 
to be. It struck Jack oddly when he -heard 
from his friend Frank Austin that the chaplain 
who hud been elected instead of iiim at the 
work-house was ill and obliged to go away for a 
time. " He is trying to find some one to take 



: his place, and to get off for a holiday," said Mr. 
Austin. "He is a poor sort of creature, and I 
j don't think he has got on very well with the 
guardians." 

"I wonder," said Trevithic, "whether I 
could take the thing for a time ? We might 
exchange, you know ; I am tired of play. Heav- 
en knows. There is little enough to do at 
Featherston, and he might easily look after my 
flock while I take the work here off his hands." 
"I know you always had a hankering after 
those unsavory flesh-pots," Austin said with a 
laugh. "I should think Skipper would jump 
at your offer, and from all I hear there is plenty 
to be done here, if it is work you are in want 
of. Poor little Skipper did his best at one 
time ; I believe he tried to collect a fund for 
some of the poor creatures who couldn't be 
taken in, but what is one small fish like him 
among so many guardians ?" said Mr. Austin, 
indulging in one of those clerical jokes to which 
Mr. TroUope has alluded in his delightful Chron- 
icles. 

Jack wrote off to his bishop and to his wife 
by that day's post. Two different answers 
reached him ; his wife's came next day, his 
bishop's three days later. 

Poor Anne was frantic, as well she might be. 
"Come to Hammersley for two months in the 
heat of the summer ; bring little Dulcie ; break 
up her home ! — Never. Throw over Lady Kid- 
derminster's Saturdays ; admit a stranger to 
the vicarage! — Never! Was her husband out 
of his senses?" She was deeply, deeply hurt. 
He must come back immediately, or moi'e se- 
rious consequences than he imagined might 
ensue. 

Trevithic's eyes filled np with tears as he 
crumpled the note up in his liand and flung it 
across the room. It was for this he had sacri- 
ficed the hope of his youth, of his life — for this. 
, It was too late now to regret, to think of what 
j another fate might have been. Marriage had 
[ done him this cruel service : It had taught hini 
what happiness might be, what some love might 
I be, but it had withheld the sweetness of the 
fruit of the tree. If it had indeed disclosed the 
I knowledge of good, it was through the very bit- 
, terness of the fruit that came to his share, that 
i this unhappy Adam, outside the gates of the 
! garden, realized what its ripe sweetness might 
have been. 

Old Mr. Bellingham did not mend matters 
by writing a trembling and long-winded remon- 
strance. Lady Kidderminster, to whom Anne 
had complained, pronounced Trevithic mad; 
she had had some idea of the kind, she said, 
that day when he behaved in that extraordinary 
manner in the lane. 

" It's a benevolent mania," said Lord Ax- 
minster, lier eldest son. 

Mrs. Myles shook her head, and began, "He 
is not mad, most noble lady . . . ." Mrs. Trev- 
ithic, who was present, flushed up with resent- 
ment at Mrs. Myles ventin-ing to interpose in 
Jack's behalf. She did not look over-pleased 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLEK. 



209 



when Mrs. Myles added tliat she should meet 
Mr. Trevithic probably when she went from 
thence to stay at Ilammersley with her cousin, 
Mrs. Gamier. 

Jack, who was in a strange determined 
mood, meanwhile wrote back to his wife to 
say that he felt that it was all very hard upon 
her; that he asked it from her goodness to him 
and her wifely love ; that he would make her 
very happy if she would only consent to come, 
and if not she must go to her father's for a few 
weeks until he had got tliis work done. "In- 
deed it is no sudden freak, dear," he wrote. "I 
had it in my mind before" (John hesitated here 
for a minute and took his pen off the paper) — 
"that eventful day when I walked up to the 
rectory, and saw you and learnt to know you." 
So lie finished his sentence. But his heart sank 
as he posted the letter. Ah me ! he had dream- 
ed a different dream. 

If his correspondence with his wife did not 
prosper as it should have done, poor Trevithic 
was greatly cheered by the bishop's letter, which 
not only gave consent to this present scheme, 
but offered him, if he wished for more active 
duty, the incumbenc}' of St. Bigot's in the North, 
which would sliortly be vacant in Ilammersley, 
and which, although less valuable than his pres- 
ent living, as far as the income was concerned, 
was much more so as regards the souls to be 
saved, which were included in the bargain. 

New brooms sweep clean, says the good old 
adage. After he took up his residence at St. 
Magdalene's, Jack's broomstick did not begin 
to sweep for seven whole days. He did not go 
back to Featherston ; Anne had left for Sand- 
sea ; and Mr. Skipper was in possession of tlie 
rectory, and Trevithic was left in that of 500 
paupers in various stages of misery and decrepi- 
tude, and of a two-headed creature called Bul- 
cox, otherwise termed the master and the ma- 
tron of the place. Jack waited ; he felt that if 
he began too soon he might ruin every thing, 
get into trouble, stir up the dust which had 
been lying so thickly, and make matters worse 
tlian before ; he waited, watched, looked about 
him, asked endless questions, to not one of 
which the poor folks dared give a truthful an- 
swer. "Nurse was werry kind, that she was, 
and most kinsiderate, up any time o' night and 
day," gas|)ed poor wretches, whose last pinch 
of tea had just been violently appropriated by 
"nurse" with the fierce eyebrows sitting over 
the fire, and who would lie for hours in an 
agony of pain before they dared awaken her 
from her weary sleep. For nurse, whatever 
her hard rapacious heart might be, was only 
made of the same aching bones and feeble flesh 
as the rest of tiiem. " Every body was kind 
and good, and the mistress came round reg'lar 
and ast them what they wanted. The tea was 
not so nice, perhaps, as it might be, but they 
was not wishin' to complain." So tliey moaned 
on for the first three days. On the fourth, one 
or two cleverer and more truthful than the rest 
O 



began to whisper tliat "nurse " sometimes in- 
dulged in a drop too much ; that she had been 
very unmanageable the nigiit before, had boxed 
poor Tilly's ears — poor simpleton. They all 
loved Tilly, and didn't like to see her hurt. 
See, there was the bruise on her cheek ; and 
Tilly, a woman of thirty, but a child in her 
ways, came shyly up in a pinafore, with a doll 
in one arm and a finger in her mouth. All the 
old hags, sitting on their beds, smiled at her as 
she went along. This poor witless Tilly was 
the pet of the ward, and they did not like to 
have her beaten. Trevithic was affected, he 
brought Tilly some sugar-plums in his pocket, 
and the old toothless crones brightened up and 
thanked him, nodding their white nightcaps en- 
couragingly from every bed. 

At the end of two days John sickened ; the 
sights, the smells, the depression of spirits pro- 
duced by this vast suffering mass of his unlucky 
brothers and sisters, was too much for him, and 
for a couple of days he took to his bed. The 
matron came to see him twice ; she took an in- 
terest in this cheerful new element, sparkling 
still with full reflection of the world outside. 
She glanced admiringly at his neatly appointed 
dressing-table, the silver top to his shaving-gear, 
and the ivory brushes. 

John was feverish and thirsty, and was drain- 
ing a bottle of murky-looking water, when Mrs. 
Bulcox came into the room on the second day. 

" What is that you are drinking there, sir ?" 
said she. "My goodness, it's the water from 
the tap — we never touch it ! I'll send you some 
of ours ; the tap-water comes through the cess- 
pool and is as nasty as nasty can be." 

"Is it what they habitually drink here?'' *x 
Trevithic asked, languidly. 

"They're used to it," said Mrs. Bulcox ; 
" nothing hurts them." 

Jack turned away with an impatient move- 
ment, and Mrs. Bulcox went off indignant at 
his want of courtesy. The fact was, that Jack 
already knew more of the Bulcox's doings than 
they had any conception of, poor wretciies, as 
they lay snoring the comfortable sleep of callous- 
ness on their snug pillows. " I don't 'alf like 
that chap," Mr. Bulcox had remarked to his 
wife, and Mrs. Bulcox had heartily echoed the 
misgiving. "I go to see him when he is ill," 
said she, "and he cuts me off as sharp as any 
thing. What business has he comin' prying 
and spying about the place ?" 

What, indeed ! The place oppressed poor 
Jack, tossing on his bed ; it seemed to close in 
upon him, the atmosphere appeared to be fall 
of horrible moans and suggestions. In his nor- 
mal condition Jack would have gone to slceji 
like a top, done his best, troubled his head no 
more on the subject of troubles he could not re- 
lieve ; but just now he was out of health, out of 
spirits — although his darling desire was his — 
and more susceptible to nervous influences and 
suggestions than he had ever been in his life be- 
fore. This night especially he was haunted and 
overpowered by the closeness and stillness of his 



210 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



room. It looked out through bars into a nar- 
row street, and a neiTous feeling of imprison- 
ment and iielplessness came over him so strong- 
ly that, to shake it off, he jumped up at last and 
partly dressed himself, and began to pace up and 
down the room. Tlie popular history of Jack 
tlie Giant-Killer gives a ghastly account of the 
abode of Blunderbore ; it describes "an im- 
mense room where lay the limbs of the people 
lately seized and devoured," and Blunderbore, 
"with a horrid grin," telling Jack " that men's 
hearts eaten with pepper and vinegar were his 
nicest food. The giant then locked Jack up," 
says the history, " and went to fetch a friend." 

Poor Trevithic felt something in Jack's posi- 
tion when the gates were closed for the night, 
and he found himself shut in with his miserable 
companions. He could from his room hear the 
bolts and the bars and the grinding of the lock, 
and immediately a longing would seize him to 
get out. 

To-night, after pacing up and down, he at 
last took up his hat and a light in his hand, and 
opened his door and walked down stairs to as- 
sure himself of his liberty and get rid of this op- 
pressive feeling of confinement. He passed the 
master's door and heard his snores, and then he 
came to the lower door opening into the inner 
court. The keys were in it — it was only lock- 
ed on the inside. As Jack came out into the 
court-yard he gave a great breath of relief: the 
stars were shining thickly overhead, very still, 
very bright ; the place seemed less God-forgot- 
ten than when he was up there in his bedroom ; 
the fresh night-air blew in his fiice and extin- 
guished his light. He did not care, he put it 
down in a corner by the door, and went on into 
the middle of the yard and looked all round 
about him. Here and there from some of the 
windows a faint light was burning and painting 
the bars in gigantic shadows upon the walls ; 
and at the end of the court, from what seemed 
like a grating to a cellar, some dim rays were 
streaming upward. Trevithic was surprised to 
see a liglit in such a place, and he walked up to 
see, and then he turned quickly away, and if 
like Uncle Toby he swore a great oath at the 
horrible sight he saw, it was but an expression 
of honest pity and most Christian charity. 
The grating was a double grating, and looked 
into two cellars which were used as casual wards 
when the regular ward was full. The sight Trev- 
ithic saw is not one that I can describe here. 
People have read of such things as they are and 
were only a little while ago when the Pall ]\fall 
Gazette first published that terrible account 
which set people talking and asking whether 
such things should be and could be still. 

Old Davy had told him a great many sad and 
horrible things, but they were not so sad or so 
horrible as the truth, as Jack now saw it. Trutli, 
naked, alas ! covered with dirt and vermin, shud- 
dering with cold, moaning with disease, and 
hc.iped and tossed in miserable uneasy sleep at 
the bottom of her foul well.. Every now and 
then a voice broke the darkness, or a cough or 



a moan reached him from the sleepers above. 
Jack did not improve his night's rest by his mid- 
night wandering. 

Trevithic got well, however, next day, dress- 
ed himself, and went down into the little office 
which had been assigned to him. His bedroom 
was over the gateway of the work-house and 
looked into the street. From his office he had 
only a sight of the men's court, the wooden 
bench, the stone steps, the grating. Inside was 
a stove and green drugget, a little library of 
books covered with greasy brown paper for the 
use of those who could read. There was not 
much to comfort or cheer him, and as he sat 
there he began to think a little disconsolately 
of his pleasant home, with its clean comfortable 
appointments, the flowers round the window, 
the fresh chintzes, and, above all, the dear little 
round face upturned to meet him at every com- 
ing home. 

It would not do to think of such things, and 
Jack put them away, but he wished that Anne 
had consented to come to him. It seemed hard 
to be there alone — him a father and a husband, 
with belongings of his own. Trevithic, who 
was still weak and out of sorts, found himself 
making a little languid castle in the air, of 
crooked places made straight, of whited sepul- 
chres made clean, of Dulcie, grown tall and 
sensible, coming tapping at his door to cheer 
him when he was sad, and encourage him when 
he was weary. 

Had the fever come back, and could it be 
that he was wandering ? It seemed to him 
that all the heads of tiie old men he could see 
through the grating were turning, and that an 
apparition was passing by — an apparition, gra- 
cious, smiling, looking in through the bars of 
his window, and coming gently knocking at his 
door ; and then it opened, and a low voice said 
— "It's me, Mr. Trevithic — Mrs. Mylcs : may I 
come in ?" and a cool, gray phantom stepped 
into the dark little room. 

Jack gladly welcomed his visitor, and brought 
out his shabby old leather chair for her ; but 
Mrs. Myles would not sit down, she had only 
come for a minute. 

" How ill you are looking !" Mary said, com- 
passionately. "I came to ask you to come 
back and dine with us ; I am only here for a 
day or two with my cousin Fanny Garnier. 
She visits this place, and brought me, and I 
thought of asking for you ; and do come, Mr. 
Trevithic. These — these persons showed me 
the way to your study." And she looked back 
at the grinning old heads that were peeping in 
at the door. Mary Myles looked like the lady 
in Coiinis — so sweet, and pure, and foir, with 
the grotesque faces peering and whispering all 
about her. They vanished when Trevithic 
turned, and stood behind the door watching 
and chattering like apes, for the pretty lady to 
come out again. "I can not tell you how glad 
we are that you have come here, Mr. Trevith- 
ic ?" said Mrs. Myles. "Poor Fanny has half 
broken her heart over the place, and Mr. Skip- 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



21 i 



per was so hopeless that it was no use urging 
him to appeal. You will do more good in a 
week than he has done in a year. I must not 
wait now," Mrs. Myles added. "You will 
come, won't you ? — at seven ; we have so much 
to say to you. Here is the address." 

As soon as Jack had promised to come, she 
left him, disappearing with her strange little 
court hobbling after her to the very gate of the 
dreary place. 

Jack was destined to have more than one 
visitor that afternoon. As he still sat writing 
busily at his desk in the little office, a tap came 
at the door. It was a different apparition this 
time, for an old woman's head peeped in, and 
an old nutcracker-looking body, in her charity- 
girl's livery, staggered feebly into his office and 
stood grinning slyh^ at him. "She came to 
borrow a book," she said. " She couldn't read, 
not she, but, law bless him, that was no mat- 
ter." Then she hesitated. "He had been 
speaking to Mike Rogers that morning. You 
wouldn't go and get us into trouble," said the 
old crone, with a wistful, doubtful, scanning in- 
terrogation of the eyes ; " but I am his good 
lady, and 'ave been these thirty years, and it do 
seem hard upon the gals, and if you could speak 
the word, sir, and get them out " 

" Out ?" said Jack. 

"From the black kitchen — so they name it," 
said the old crone, mysteriously : " the cellar 
under the master's stairs. Kate Hill has been 
in and out a week come yesterday. I knowed 
lier grandmother, poor soul. She shouldn't 
have spoke tighty to the missis ; but she is 
young and don't know no better, and my good 
man and me was thinking if maybe you could 
say a word, sir — as if from yourself. Maybe 
you heard her as you went up stairs, sir ; for 
we know our cries is 'card." 

So this was it. The moans in the air were 
not fimcy, the complainings had been the real 
complaints of some one in suffering and pain. 

" Here is the book," said Jack, suddenly ; 
"and I'm afraid you can have no more snuff, 
ma'am." And with a start poor old Betty 
Rogers nearly stumbled over the matron, who 
was standing at his door. 

" Well, what is it you're wanting now?" said 
Mrs. Bulcox. "You mustn't allow them to 
come troubling you, Mr. Trevithic." 

"I am net here for long, Mrs. Bulcox," said 
Jack, shrugging his shoulders. " While I stay 
I may as well do all I can for these poor crea- 
tures." 

A gleam of satisfaction came into Mrs. Bul- 
cox's face at the notion of his approaching de- 
parture. He had been writing all the morning, 
covering sheets and sheets of paper. He had 
been doing no harm, and she felt she could go 
out for an hour with her Bulcox, with an easy 
mind. 

As Mr. and Mrs. Bulcox came home togeth- 
er, Jack, who was looking from his bedroom 
window, saw them walking up the street. He 
had put up his sheets of paper in an envelope. 



and stamped it, and addressed it. He had not 
wasted his time during their absence, and he 
had visited a part of the work-house unknown 
to him before, having bribed one pauper and 
frightened another into showing him the way. 
Mr. Bulcox coming under the window heard 
Jack calling to him aflably. " Would you be 
so kind as to post this packet for me?" cried 
Jack. The post-box was next door to the 
work-house. "Thank you," he said, as Mr. 
Bulcox picked up the thick letter which came 
falling to the ground at his feet. It was ad- 
dressed to Colonel the Hon. Charles Hamble- 
don, Lowndes Square, London. "Keeps very 
'igh company," said Bulcox to his wife, and he 
felt quite pleased to post a letter addressed to 
so distinguished a personage. 

" Thank you," said Jack again, looking very 
savagely pleased and amused ; "it was of im- 
portance." He did not add that it was a letter 
to the editor of the Jupiter, who was a friend 
of his friend's. Trevithic liked the notion of. 
having got Bulcox to fix the noose round his 
own neck. He felt ashamed of the part he 
was playing, but he did not hurry himself for 
that. It was necessary to know all, in order to 
sweep clean once he began. Poor Kate Hill, 
still in durance, received a mysterious and en- 
couraging message, and one or two comforts 
were smuggled in to her by her jailer. On 
the Wednesday morning his letter Mould ap- 
pear in the Jupiter — nothing more could be 
done until then. Next day was Tuesday : he 
would go over to Sandsea and talk Anne into 
reason, and get back in time for the Board ; and 
in the mean time Jack dressed himself and went 
to dine with the widows. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PARCiE CUT A THREAD OF MRS. TREV- 
ITHIC'S KNITTING. 

Mrs. Myles's cousin, Mrs. Gamier, lived in 
a quaint, comfortable-looking low house on the 
Chester high-road, with one or two bow-win- 
dows and gables standing out for no apparent 
reason, and a gallery up stairs, with four or five 
windows, which led to the drawing-room. 

The two widows were very fond of one an- 
other and often together ; there was a similari- 
ty in tastes and age and circumstance. The 
chief diflej'ence in their fate had been this — that 
Fanny Garnier had loved her husband, although 
she could not agree with him — for loving and 
gareeing do not go together always — and Mary 
Myles's married life had been at best a struggle 
for indifference and forgiveness : she was not a 
very easily moulded woman ; she could do no 
more than forgive, and repent her own ill-doing 
in marrying as she did. 

The trace of their two lives was set upon the 
cousins. A certain coldness and self-reliance, 
a power of living for to-day and forgetting, was 
the chief gift that had come to Mary Myles out 



212 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



of the past experience of her life. Fanny Gar- 
nier was softer, more impressionable, more easily 
touclied and assimilated by the people with 
whom she came in contact : she was less crisp 
and bright than Mary, and older, though she 
was the same age. She had loved more and 
sorrowed more, and people remember their sor- 
rows in after years wlien their angers are 
forgotten and have left only a blank in their 
minds. 

George Gamier, Fanny Garnier's husband, 
had belonged to that sect of people who have an 
odd fancy in their world for making themselves 
and other folks as miserable as- they possibly 
can — for worrying and wearying and torturing, 
for doubting and trembling, for believing far 
more eagerly in justice (or retribution, which is 
their idea of justice) than in mercy. Tei-ror 
has a strange morbid attraction for these folks; 
mistrust, for all they say, seems to be the mo- 
tive power of their lives : they gladly oiFer pain 
and tears and penitence as a ghastly propitia- 
tion. They are of all religions and creeds ; 
they arc found with black sliins and woolly 
heads, building up their altars and offering their 
human sacrifices in the unknown African des- 
erts; they are cliipping and chopping tliem- 
selves before their emerald-nosed idols who sit 
squatting in unclean temples ; they are living in 
the streets and houses all round about us, in 
George Garnier's pleasant old cottage outside 
the gi-eat Hammersley city, or at number five, 
and six, and seven in our street, as the case 
may be ; in the convent at Bayswatei', in the 
manses and presbyteries. You or I may belong 
to the fraternity, so did many a better man, as 
the children say — St. Simon Stylites, Athan- 
asius, John Calvin, Milton, Ignatius Loyola, 
Savonarola, not to speak of Saints A, B, C, D, 
and E. 

Mary poured Jack out a big cup of sti'ong tea, 
and brought it across the lamp-lit room to him 
with her own white hands. Mrs. Gamier shiv- 
ered as she heard his story. The tea smoked, 
the lamps burnt among the flower-stands, the 
wood-fire blazed cheerfully, for Mrs. Myles was 
a chilly and weak-minded person, and lit her 
fire all tlie year round, more or less. Trevithic, 
comfortably sunk back in a big arm-chair, felt a 
grateful sense of ease and rest and consolation. 
The atmosphere of the little house was so con- 
genial and fragrant, the two women were such 
sympathizing listeners ; Mary Myles's bright 
eyes lighted with such kindly interest ; while 
Mrs. Gamier, silent, available, sat with her 
knitting under the shade of the lamp. The 
])oor fellow was not insensible to these soothing 
' influences. As he talked on, it seemed to him 
that for the first time in his life he had realized 
what companionship and sympathy might mean. 
Something invisible, harmonious, delicate, seem- 
ed to drive away from him all thought of sin or 
misery and turmoil when in comjjany with these 
two kind women. This was what a home might 
liavebecn — a warm, flower-scented, lamp-twink- 
ling haven with sweet still eyes to respond and 



brigliten at his success and to cheer his failing 
efforts. Tills was what it never, never would 
be, and Trevithic put the thought away. It was 
dangerous ground for the poor heart-weary fel- 
low, longing for peace and home, comfort and 
love ; whereas Anne, to whom he was bound 
to look for these good things, was at Sandsea, 
fulfilling every duty of civilized life, and not 
greatly troubled for her husband, but miserable 
on her own account, hard and vexed and deep- 
ly off'ended. 

Mrs. Trevithic was tripping along the south 
cliff" on the afternoon of the next day, when the 
sound of footste])s behind her made her stop and 
look round. As she saw that it was her hus- 
band coming towards her, her pale face turned 
a shade more pale. 

" Oh, how d'ye do ?" Anne said. " I did not 
expect you. Have you come for long ?" And 
she scarcely waited for him to come up to her, 
but began to walk on immediately. 

Poor John ; what a coming home ! He ar- 
rived witli his various interests, his reforms, his 
forthcoming letter in the Jupiter ; there was the 
offer of the bishop's in his pocket — the moment- 
ary gladness and elation of return — and this 
was all he had come back to ! 

" Have you come on business?" Mi-s. Trev- 
ithic asked. 

"I wanted to see you and Dulcie," John an- 
swered ; " that was my business. Time seems 
very long without you both. All this long time 
I have only had Mrs. Myles to befriend me. I 
wish — I wish you would try to like the place, too, 
Anne. Those two ladies seem very hap])y 
there." 

"Mrs. Myles, I have no doubt," said Anne, 
bitterly. "No," she cried, "you need not talk 
so to me. I know too much, too much, too 
much," she said, with something like real patlios 
in her voice. 

"My dearest Anne, what do you mean?" 
Trevithic said kindly, hurrying after her, for 
she was walking very fast. 

" It is too late. I can not forgive you. I am 
not one of those people who can forget easily 
and forgive. Do you think I do not know tliat 
your love is not mine — never was — never will 
be mine? Do you think gossip never reaches 
me here, far awaj', though I try to live in peace 
and away from it all ? And you dare mention 
Mary Myles's name to me, you dare — you dare !" 
cried Anne, in her quick, fierce manner. 

" Of course I dare," said Trevithic. " Enough 
of this, Anne," and he looked as hard as Anne 
herself for a minute; then he melted. "Dear 
Anne, if something has failed in our home hith- 
erto, let us forgive one another and make a new 
start in life. Listen," and he pulled out the 
bisliop's letter, with the offer of St. Bigot's, and 
read it to her. " I need not tell you how much 
I wisli for this." 

His wife did not answer. At first he thought 
she was relenting. She went a little way down 
the side of the clitFand waited for him, and then 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



213 



suddenly turned upon liim. The wash of the 
sea seemed to flow in time with her words. 

"Yon are cruel — yes, cruel!" said Anne, 
trembling very much, and moved for once out 
of her calm. " You think I can bear any thing, 
I can not bear your insults any longer ! I must 
go — leave you. Yes, listen to me, I will go, I 
tell you. My father will keep me here, me and 
little Dulcie, and you can haA^e your own way, 
John, and go where you like. You love your 
own way better than any thing else in the world, 
and it will make up to you for the home which, 
as you say, has been a failure on the wliole." 
And Mrs. Trevithic tried to clioke down a gulp 
of bitter angry tears. 

As she spoke John remembered a time not so 
very long ago, when Anne had first sobbed out 
she loved him, and when the tears which she 
should have gulped away had been allowed to 
ovei-flow into those bitter Avaters of strife — alas ! 
neither of them could have imagined possible 
until now. 

They had been walking side by side along the 
beach, the parson trudging angrily a little ahead, 
with his long black coat flapping and swinging 
against his legs ; Anne skimming along skill- 
fully after him, with her quick slender footsteps ; 
but as she went along she blamed him in her 
heart for every roughness and inequality of the 
shore, and once when she struck her foot against 
a stone her ire rose sore against him. Little 
Dulcie from the rectory garden spied them out 
afar off, and pointed and capered to attract their 
attention ; but the father and mother were too 
much absorbed in tlieirown troubles to heed her, 
even if they could have descried her small per- 
son among the grasses and trees. 

" You mean to say," said Jack, stopping short 
suddenly, and turning round and speaking with 
a f^iint discordant jar in his voice, "that you 
want to leave me, Anne ?" 

"Yes," said Anne, quite calm and composed, 
with two glowing cheeks that alone showed that 
a fire of some sort was smouldering within. 
"Yes, John, I mean it. I have not been hap- 
py, I have not succeeded in making you happy. 
I think we should both be better people apart 
than together. I never, never felt so — so 
ashamed of myself in all my life as since I have 
been married to you. I will stay here with 
papa. You have given up your living; you can 
now go and fulfill those duties which are moi'e to 
you than wife or children or home." Anne — 
who was herself again by this time — calmly roll- 
ed up her parasol as she spoke, and stood wait- 
ing for an answer. I think she expected a ten- 
der burst of remonstrance from her husband, a 
pathetic appeal, an abandonment possibly of the 
mad scheme v/hich filled her with such unspeaka- 
ble indignation. She had not counted on his 
silence. John stopped short a second time, and 
stood staring at the sea. He was cut to the heart ; 
cruelly stunned and shocked and wounded by the 
pain, so that he had almost forgotten his wife's ■ 
presence, or what he should say, or any thing 
but the actual suffering that he was enduring. ] 



It seemed like a revelation of a horrible secret 
to which he had been blind all along. It was 
like a curse falling upon his home — undreamt 
of for a time, and suddenly realized. A great 
swift hatred flamed up in his heart against the 
calm and passive creature who had wrouglit it — 
who was there before him waiting for his assent 
to her excellent arrangements ; a hatred, indeed, 
of which she was unworthy and unconscious ; 
for Anne was a woman of slow perception. It 
took a long time for her to realize the effect of 
her woi'ds, or to understand what was passing in 
other people's minds. She was not more an- 
noyed now with Trevithic than she had been 
for a long time past. She had no conception 
of the furies of scorn and hatred which were bat- 
tling and tearing at the poor fellow's kind heart ; 
she had not herself begun to respond even to 
her own emotions ; and so she stood quite quiet- 
l)-, expecting, like some stupid bird by the water's 
edge, waiting for the wave to overwhelm her. 
"Do you not agree with me?" she said at last. 
Trevithic was roused by his wife's question, and 
answered it. "Yes; just as you wish," he said, 
in an odd, cracked voice, with a melancholy jar 
in it. "Just as you like, Anne." And with- 
out looking at her again, he began once more to 
tramp along the shingle, crushing the pebbles 
under his feet as he went. The little stones 
started and rolled away under his impatient 
tread. Anne from habit followed him, without 
much thinking where she was going, or what aim 
she had in so doing; but she could not keep up 
with his strong progress — the distance widened 
and widened between them. John walked far- 
ther away, while Mrs. Trevithic, following after, 
trying in vain to hasten her lagging steps, grew 
sad and frightened all at once as she saw him 
disappearing in the distance. And then it was 
her turn to realize what she had done. Seeing 
her husband go, this poor woman began to un- 
derstand at last that her foolish longing was 
granted. 

Her feet failed, her heart sank, her courage 
died away all suddenly. Like a flame blown 
out, all the fire of her vexation and impatience 
was gone, and only a dreary nothing remained. 
And more hard to bear even than the troubles, 
the pains, the aches, the longings of life, are its 
blanks and its wants. Outer darkness, with the 
tormenting fires and the companion devils, is not 
the outer darkness that has overwhelmed most 
hearts with terror and apprehension. No words, 
no response, silence, abandonment — to us weak, 
loving, longing human creatures,tliat is the worst 
fate of all. 

Anne became very tired, struggling after Trev- 
ithic. Little by little she began to realize that 
she had sent him away and he was going. A 
gull flapped across her path, and frightened her. 
She could see him still; he had not yet turned 
up the steps from thecliff to the rectory garden, 
but he was gone as certainly as if she could no 
longer see him. And then she began to learn 
in a void of incredulous amaze, poor sluggish 
soul, that life was hard, very hard, and terribly 



214 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



remorseless ; that when you strike, the blow falls ; 
that what you wish is not always what you want ; 
that it is easy to call people to you once jier- 
haps, and to send them away once, but that 
wlien they come they stay, and when they go 
tliey are gone and all is over. Why was he so 
headstrong, so ungrateful, so unreasonable? 
Was she not right to blame him ? and had he 
not owned himself to be in the wrong ? Ah, 
poor wife, poor wife ! Something choking and 
blinding seemed to smite the unhappy woman 
in her turn. She reached the steps at last that 
lead up the cliff to the rectory garden where lit- 
tle Dulcie had been playing when her mother 
left her. Anne longed to find her there — to 
clutch her in her poor aching arms, and cover 
her sweet little rosy face with kisses. ' ' Dulcie," 
she called, "Dulcie, Dulcie !" her voice echoing 
so sadly that it struck herself, but Dulcie's cheery 
little scream of gladness did not answer, and 
Anne — who took this silence as a bad omen — 
felt her heart sink lower. In a vague way she 
thought that if she could have met Dulcie all 
M'ould have been well. 

She was calling still, when some one answer- 
ed ; figures came to the hall-door, half a dozen 
officious hands were outstretched, and friendly 
greetings met her. Tlierc was Miss Triquett 
who was calling with Miss Moineaux, and Miss 
Simmonds who had driven up in her basket-car- 
riage, and old Mr. Bellingham trying in a help- 
less way to entertain his visitresses, and to make 
himself agreeable to them all. The old gen- 
tleman, much relieved at the sight of his daugh- 
ter, called her to him with a cheerful, "Ah, my 
dear, here you are. I shall now leave these la- 
dies in better hands than mine. I am sorry to 
say I have a sermon to write." And Mr. Bel- 
lingham immediately and benevolently trotted 
away. 

With the curious courage of women, and long 
habitude, Mrs. Trevithic took off her hat and 
smoothed her straight hair, and sat down, and 
mechanically began to make conversation for 
the three old ladies who established themselves 
comfortably in the pleasant bow -windowed 
drawing-room, and prepared for a good chat. 
Miss Simmonds -took the sofa as her right (as I 
have said before, size has a certain precedence 
of its own). Miss Triquett, as usual, rapidly 
glanced round the apartment, took in the im- 
portation of work-boxes, baskets, toy-boxes, etc., 
which Anne's arrival had scattered about, the 
trimming on Mrs. Trevithic's dress, the worn 
lines under sher eyes. Mrs. Trevithic took her 
knitting from one of the baskets, and rang tlie 
bell and desired the man to find Miss Dulcie 
and send her ; and meanwhile the stream of 
conversation flowed on uninterruptedly. Mr. 
Trevithic was well. Only come for a day ! 
And the little girl? Thanks — yes. Little 
Dulcie's cold had been severe — linseed poultices, 
squills, ipecacuanha wine ; — thanks, yes. Mrs. 
Trevithic was already aware of their valuable 
medicinal properties. Mr. Pelligrew, the pres- 
ent curate, had sprained his thumb in the pul- 



pit door — wet bandages, etc., etc. Here Miss 
Simmonds, whose eyes had been fixed upon the 
window all this time, suddenly exclaimed : — 

"How fond your husband is of that dear 
child Dulcie, Mrs. Trevithic! There she is 
with her papa in the garden." 

"Dear me!" said Triquett, stretching her 
long neck and lighting up with excitement. 
"Mr. Trevithic must be going away ; you nev- 
er told us. He is carrying a carpet-bag." 

As she spoke, Anne, who had been sitting 
with her back to the window, started up, and 
her knitting fell off her lap. She was irresolute 
for an instant. He could not be going — going 
like that, without a word. No, she would not 
follow him. 

"Oh dear me!" said Miss Simmonds, who 
had been trying to hook up the little rolling 
ball of worsted with the end of her parasol, 
"just see what I have done." And siie held 
the parasol up spindle-fashion with the long en- 
tangled thread twisted round it. 

" I think I can undo it," said Miss Moi- 
neaux. 

"I beg your pardon, I — I want to speak 
to my husband," said Mrs. Trevithic, all of a 
sudden starting up and running to the door. 

"He is going," said Miss Triquett to the 
others, looking once more out tin-ough the big 
pleasant window, as Anne left the room. 
" Dear Miss Moineaux, into what a mess you 
have got that knitting ; here are some scissors 
— let me cut the thread." 

"Poor thing! she is too late," said Miss 
Moineaux, letting the two ends of the thread 
fall to the ground. 



CHAPTER VII. 

IN blundekbore's castle. 

When Jack first made the acquaintance of 
the Board on the Wednesday after he first came 
j to the work-house, the seven or eight gentlemen 
sitting round the green table greeted him quite 
as one of themselves as he came into the room. 
This was a dull September morning; the mist 
seemed to have oozed in through the high win- 
dow and continually opening door. When Jack 
passed through the outer or entrance room, 
he saw a heap of wistful faces and rags already 
waiting for admittance, some women and some 
children, a man with an arm in a sling, one or 
two work-house liahitves — there was no mistaking 
the hard coarse faces. Two old paupers were 
keeping watch at the door, and officially flung 
it open for him to pass in. The guardians had 
greeted him very affably on the previous occa- 
sion — a man of the world, a prosperous but ec- 
centric vicar, was not to be treated like an ev- 
ery-day curate and chaplain. "Ah, how d'ye 
do, Mr. Trevithic?" said the half-pay Captain, 
the chairman. The gas-fitter cleared his throat 
and made a sort of an attempt at a bow. The 
wholesale grocer rubbed his two hands together 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



!ir, 



— Pitchley liis name was, I think — for some 
reason or other, he exercised great influence 
over the rest. But on this second Wednesday 
morning the Jupiter had come out with an as- 
tounding letter — about themselves, their work- 
house, their master, their private paupers. It 
was a day they never forgot, and the natural in- 
dignation of the Board overflowed. 

Perhaps Jack would have done better had he 
first represented matters to them, but he knew 
that at least two of the guardians were impli- 
cated. He was afraid of being silenced and of 
having the affair hushed up. He cared not for 
the vials of their wrath being emptied upon him, 
so long as they cleansed the horrible place in 
their outpour. He walked in quite brisk and 
placid to meet the storm. The guardians had 
not all seen the Jupiter as they came dropping 
in. Oker, the gas-man, was late, and so was 
Pitchley as it happened, and when they arrived 
Jack was already standing in his pillory and 
facing the indignant chairman. 

" My friend Colonel Hambledon wrote the 
letter from notes which I gave him," said Jack. 
" I considered publicity best ; — under the cir- 
cumstances, I could not be courteous," he said, 
"if I hoped to get through this disagreeable 
business at all effectually. I could not have se- 
lected any one of you gentlemen as confidants, 
in common fairness to the others. I wish the 
inquiry to be complete and searching. I was 
obliged to brave the consequences." 

"Upon my word I think you have acted 
right," said one of the guardians, a doctor, a 
bluff old fellow who liked frank speaking. But 
an indignant murmur expressed the dissent of 
the other members of the Board. 

"I have been here a fortnight," said Jack. 
" I had not intended speaking so soon of what 
I now wish to bring before your notice, but the 
circumstances seem to me so urgent and so un- 
doubted that I can see no necessity for defer- 
ring my complaint any longer." 

" Dear me, sir," said the gas-fltter, coming 
in, "I 'ope there's nothink wrong?" 

"Everything, more or less," said Trevithic, 
quietly. " In the first place, I wish to bring 
before you several cases of great neglect on the 
part of Mr. and Mrs. Bulcox." 

Here the chairman colored up. "I think, 
Mr. Trevithic, we had better have the master 
present if you have any complaint to lodge 
against him." 

" By all means," said Trevithic, impassively; 
'and he turned over his notes while one of the 
trembling old messengers went off for the mas- 
ter. 

The master arrived and the matron too. 
"How d'ye do, Bulcox?" said the chairman. 
Mrs. Bulcox dropped a respectful sort of cour- 
tesy, and Trevithic immediately began without 
giving time for the others to speak. He turned 
upon the master. 

" I have a complaint to lodge against you and 
Mrs. Bulcox, and at the chairman's suggestion 
I waited for you to be present." 



"Against me, sir ?" said Bulcox, indignant- 

"Against me and Mr. Bulcox ?" said the 
woman, with a bewildered, injured, saint-like 
sort of swoop. 

" Yes," Jack answered, curtly. 

" Have you seen the letter in the Jupiter?'' 
said the chairman, gravely, to Mr. Bulcox. 

" Mr. Bulcox was good enough to post the 
letter himself," Jack interposed briskly. "It 
was to state, what I honestly believe to be the 
fact, that I consider that you, Mr. Bulcox, are 
totally unfit for your present situation as mas- 
ter. I am aware that you have good friends 
among these gentlemen, and that, as far as they 
can tell, your conduct has always been a model 
of deference and exemplariness. Now," said 
Jack, " with the Board's permission. I will lodge 
my complaints against you in form." And here 
Trevithic pulled out his little book, and read 
out as follows : — 

" ]. That the management and economy of 
this work-house are altogether disgraceful. 

" 2. That you have been guilty of cruelty to 
two or three of the inmates. 

"3. That you have embezzled or misapplied 
certain sums of money allowed to you for the 
relief of the sick paupers under your care." 

But here the chairman, guardians, master 
and mistress, would hear no more; all inter- 
rupted Trevithic at once. 

"Really, sir, you must substantiate sucli 
charges as these. Leave the room " (to the 
messengers at the door). 

"I can not listen to such imputations," from 
the master. 

" What have we done to you that you should 
say such cruel, false things?" from the mistress. 
" Oh sir " (to the chairman), " turn him away ; 
say you don't believe him." 

" If you will come with me now," Jack con- 
tinued, addi-essing the guardians, "I think I 
can prove some of my statements. Do you 
know that the little children here are crying with 
hunger? Do you know that the wine allowed 
for the use of the sick had been regularly ap- 
propriated by these two wretclies ?" cried Trev- 
ithic, in an honest fury. " Do you know that 
people here are lying in their beds in misery, at 
this instant, who have not been moved or 
touched for weeks and weeks ; that the nurses 
follow the example of those who are put over 
them, and drink, and ill-use their patients; 
that the food is stinted, the tea is undrinkablc, 
the meat is bad and scarcely to be touched ; that 
the very water flows from a foul cesspool : that 
at this instant, in a cellar in the house, there 
are three girls shut up, without beds or any 
conceivable comfort — one has been there four 
days and nights, another has been shut up twice 
in one week in darkness and unspeakable mis- 
ery ? Shall I tell you the crime of this culprit ? 
She spoke saucily to tlie matron, and this is her 
punishment. Will you come with me now, and 
see whether or not I have been speaking the 
truth?" 



216 



riVE OLD FRIENDS. 



There was not one -word he could not sub- 
stantiate. He had not been idle all this time, 
he had been collecting his proofs — ghastly proofs 
they were. 

The sight of the tliree girls brought blinded 
and staggering out of the cellar had more effect 
than all the statements and assertions which 
I\Ir. Trevithic had been at such great pains to 
get together. The Bulcoxes were doomed ; of 
this tliere could be no doubt. They felt it them- 
selves as they plodded across the yard with the 
little mob of excited and curious guardians. 
Oker, the gas-fitter, took their part, indeed, so 
did tlie grocer. Tiie old doctor nearly fell upon 
the culprits then and there. The rest of the 
giuirdians seemed to be divided in their indig- 
nation against Jack for telling, against Bulcox 
for being found out, against the paupers for be- 
ing ill-used, for being paupers ; against the re- 
porter for publishing such atrocious libels. It 
was no bed of roses that Trevithic iiad made for 
himself. 

A special meeting was convened for the end 
of the week. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



As years go by, and wc see more of life and 
of our fellow-creatures, the by-play of existence 
is curiously unfolded to us, and we may, if we 
choose, watch its tln-eads twisting and untwist- 
ing, flying apart and coming togetRcr. People 
rise from their sick-beds, come driving up in 
carriages, come walking along the street into 
each other's lives. As A. trips along by the 
garden-wall, Z. at the other end of tlie world, 
perhaps, is thinking that he is tired of this soli- 
tary bushman's life ; he was meant for some- 
thing better than sheep-shearing and driving 
convicts, and he says to himself that he will 
throw it all up and go back to England, and 
see if there is not bread enough left in the old 
country to support one more of her sons. Here, 
perhaps A. stoops to pick a rose, and places it in 
her girdle, and wonders whether that is C. on 
the rough pony riding along the road from mar- 
ket. As for Z., A. has never even conceived 
the possibility of his existence. But by this 
time Z. at the other end of the world has made 
up his mind, being a man of quick and deter- 
mined action, and poor C.'s last chance is over, 
and pretty A., with the rose in her girdle, will 
never be his. Or it may be that Z., after due 
reflection, likes the looks of his tallows, X. and 
Y. come to t!ie station, which had Jiitherto only 
been visited by certain very wild-looking letters 
of the alphabet, with feathers in their heads, 
and faces streaked with white paint, and A. 
gives her rose to C, who puts it in his button- 
hole with awkward country gallantry, quite un- 
conscious of tlie cliance they have both run that 
morning, and that their fate has been settled for 
them at the other end of the world. 

When my poor A. bursts into tears at the be- 



ginning of this story, another woman, who 
should have been Trevithic's wife, as far as one 
can judge speaking of such matters, a person 
who could have sympathized with his ambitions 
and understood the direction of his impulses, a 
woman with enough enthusiasm and vigor in 
iier nature to carry her bravely through the 
tangles and difBculties which only choked and 
scratched and tired out poor Anne — this person, 
who was not very far off at the time, and no 
other than Mary Myles, said to some one who 
was with her — and she gave a pretty sad smile 
and quick shake of the head as she spoke : — 

"No, it is no use. I have nothing but 
friendliness, a horrible, universal feeling of 
friendliness, left for any of my fellow-creatures, 
I will confess honestly " (and here she lost her 
color a little) "I did wrong once. I married 
my husband for a home — most people know how 
I was punished, and what a miserable home it 
was. I don't mind telling you. Colonel Ham- 
bledon, for you well understand how it is that I 
must make the best of my life in this arid and 
lonely waste to which my own fault has brought 
me." 

Mrs. Myles's voice faltered as she spoke, 
and she hung her head to hide the tears which 
had come into her eyes. And Colonel Ilaniblc- 
don took this as an answer to a question he had 
almost asked her, and went away. 

" If ever you should change your mind," he 
said, "you would find me the same a dozen 
years hence." And Mary only siglied and 
shook her head. 

But all this was years ago — three years near- 
ly by tiie Dulcie almanac — and if Mary Myles 
sometimes thought she had done foolishly when 
she sent Charles Hambledon away, there was 
no one to whom she could own it — not even 
to her cousin Fanny, who had no thoughts of 
marrying or giving in marriage, or wishes for 
happiness beyond tiie ordering her garden-beds 
and the welfare of her poor people. 

Fanny one day asked her cousin what had 
become of her old friend the Colonel. Mary 
blushed up brightly, and said she did not know ; 
she believed he was in Ilammersley. Fanny, 
who was cutting out little flannel vests for her 
school-children, was immediately lost in the in- 
tricacies of a gore, and did not notice the blush 
or the bright amused glance in the quiet gray 
eyes that were watcliing her at her benevolent 
toil. Snip, snip, sni-i-i-i-i-i-ip went the scissors 
with that triumphant screeching sound which all 
good housewives love to hear. Mary was lean- 
ing back in her chair, perfectly lazy and unoc- 
cupied, with her little white hands crossed upon 
her knees, and her pretty head resting against 
the chair. She would not have been sorry to 
have talked a little more upon a su'oject that 
was not uninteresting to her, and she tried to 
make Fanny speak. 

" What do yon think of him ? Have yon 
heard that hehas come ?" she asked a little slij'ly. 

" Oh, I don't know. No, I have not seen 
any of them for a long time," said Fanny, ab- 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



217 



sently. " Mary, are you not ashamed of being 
so lazy? Come and hold these strips." 

Mary did as she was bid, and held out gray 
flannel strips at arms' length, and watching the 
scissors flashing, the pins twinkling, and the neat 
little heaps rising all about on the floor and the 
chairs and the tables. Then Mrs. Myles tried 
again. " Mr. Trevithic tells me that Colonel 
Ilambledon is coming down to help him with 
til is work-house business. You will have to ask 
tliem both to dinner, Fanny." 

Fanny did not answer for a minute. She 
hesitated, looked Mary full in the fiice, and then 
said very thoughtfully : " Don't you think un- 
bleached calico will be best to line the jackets 
with? It will keep the children warm, poor 
little things." The children's little backs might 
be warmed by this heap of snips and linings ; 
but Mary suddenly felt as if all the wraps and 
flannels and calicos were piled upon her head, 
and choking and oppressing her, while all the 
while her heart was cold and shivering, poor 
thing ! There are no flannel jackets that I 
know of to warm sad hearts such as hers. 

Fanny Garnier was folding up the lastof hei 
jackets ; Mary, after getting through more work 
in half an hour than Fanny the methodical could 
manage in two, had returned to her big arm- 
chair, and was leaning back in the old listless 
attitude, dreaming dreams of her own, as her 
eyes wandered to the window and followed the 
line of the trees showing against the sky — when 
the door opened, and a stupid country man- 
servant suddenly introduced Jack, and the Colo- 
nel of Mrs. Myles's visionary recollections in 
actual person, wall;ing into the very midst of 
the snippings and jmrings which were scattered 
about on the floor. Fanny was in no wise dis- 
concerted. She rather gloried in her occupa- 
tion. I can not say so much for Mary, who nerv- 
ously hated any show of aflfectation of philan- 
thropy, and who now jumped up hastily, with an 
exclamation, an outstretched hand, and a blush. 

" There seems to be something going on," the 
Colonel said, standing over a heap of straggling 
"backs" and "arms." 

" Do come up stairs out of this labyrinth of 
good intentions," cried Mary, hastily'. "Fan- 
ny, please put down your scissors, and let us go 
up." 

"I'll follow,'' said Fanny, placidly, and Mary 
had to lead the way alone to the long low bow- 
windowed drawing-room which Trevithic knew 
so well. She had regained her composure and 
spirits by the time they reached the landing at 
the top of the low flight of oak steps ; and, in- 
deed, both Hambledon and Mrs. Myles were far 
too much used to the world and its ways to be- 
tray to each other the smallest indication of the 
real state of their minds. Three years had pass- 
ed since they parted. If Mary's courage had 
failed then, it was the Colonel's now that was 
wanting ; and so it happens with people late in 
life — the fatal gift of experience is theirs. They 
mistrust, they hesitate, they bargain to the ut- 
termost farthing; the jewel is there, but it is 



locked up so securely in strong boxes and wrap- 
pers, that it is beyond the power of the possess- 
ors to reach it. Their youth and simplicity is 
as much a part of them still as their placid mid- 
dle age ; but it is hidden away under the years 
which are heaped upon the past, and its glory is 
not shining as of old upon their brows. Mrs. 
Myles and the Colonel each were acting a part, 
and perfectly at case as they discussed all man- 
ner of things that had been since they met, and 
might be before they met again. Fanny, hav- 
ing folded away the last of her flannels, came up 
placid and smiling too ; and after half an hour 
the two gentlemen went away. Fanny forgot 
to ask them to dinner, and wondered why her 
cousin was so cross all the rest of the afternoon. 
No, Mary would not go out. No, she had no 
headache, thank you. As soon as she had got 
rid of Fanny and her questionings, Mary Myles 

j ran up to her room and pulled out some old, 
old papers and diaries, and read the old tear- 
stained records till new tears fell to wash away 

j the old ones. Ah, yes, she had done rightly 
when she sent Hambledon away. Three years 
ago — it had seemed to her then that a lifetime 
of expiation would not be too long to repent of 
the wrong she had done when she married — 

j loveless, thriftful, longing (and that, poor soul, 
had been her one excuse), for the possible love 

, that had never come to her. Life is so long, 

j the time is so slow that passes wearily : she had 
been married three years, she had worn sackcloth 
three years, and now — now if it were not too late, 

j how gladly, how gratefully, she would grasp a 



hope of some life more complete than the sad one 
she had led ever since she could remember almost. 
Would it not be a sign that she had been forgiven 
if the happiness she had so longed for came to her 
at last? Mary wondered that her troubles had 
left no deeper lines upon her face ; wondered 
that she looked so young still, so fair and smil- 
ing, while her heart felt so old ; and smiled sad- 
ly at her own face in the glass. 

And then, as people cfo to whom a faint dawn 
of rising hope shows the darkness in which they 
have been living, Mrs. Myles began to think of 
some of her duties that she had neglected of late, 
and of others still in darkness for wliom no dawn 
was nigh : and all the M'hile, still feeling as peo- 
ple feel whose hearts are full, she was longing 
for some one to speak to, some one wiser than 
herself to whom she could say. What is an ex- 
piation ? can it, does it exist ? is it the sam.e as 
repentance? are we called upon to crush our 
hearts, to put away our natural emotions ? Fan- 
ny would say yes, and would scorn her for her 
weakness, and cry out with horror at a second 
marriage. " And so would I have done," poor 
Mary thought, "if— if poor Tom had only been 
fond of me." And then the thought of Trev- 
ithic came to her as a person to speak to, a 
helper and adviser. He would speak the truth ; 
he would not be afraid, Mary thought ; and the 
secret remembrance that he was Hambledon's 
friend did not make her feel less confidence in 
his decisions. 



218 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



Mrs. Myles had been away some little time 
from her house at Sandsea, and from the self- 
imposed duties vvliich were waiting undone un- 
til her return. Before Fanny came home that 
evening, she sat down and wrote to lier old 
friend, Miss Triquett, begging her to be so good 
as to go to Mrs. Gummers, and one or two more 
whose names, ages, troubles, and families were 
down upon her list, and distribute a small sum 
of money inclosed. ' ' I am not afraid of troub- 
ling you, dear Miss Triquett, " wrote Mary Myles, 
in her big, picturesque hand-writing. ' ' I know 
your kind heart, and that you never grudge time 
nor fatigue when you can help any one out of 
the smallest trouble or the greatest. I have 
been seeing a good deal lately of Mr. Trevitliic, 
who is of your way of thinking, and wlio has 
been giving himself an infinity of pains about 
some abuses in the work-house here. He is, I 
do believe, one of the few people who could have 
come to the help of the poor creatures. He has 
so much courage and temper, such a bright and 
generous way of sympathizing and entering into 
other people's troubles, and I do not despair of 
his accomplishing this good work. My cousin 
and I feel very much with and for him. He 
looked ill and worn one day when I called upon 
him ; but I am glad to think that coming to us 
has been some little change and comfort to him. 
He is quite alone, and we want him to look upon 
this place as his home while he is here. Your 
old acquaintance, Colonel Hambledon, has come 
down about this business. It is most horrifying. 
Can you imagine the poor sick people left with 
tipsy nurses, and, more dreadful still, girls lock- 
ed up in cellars by the cruel matron for days at 
a time ? but this fact has only just been made 
public. 

• " Goodness and enthusiasm like Mr. Trev- 
ithic's seem all the more beautiful when one 
liears such terrible histories of wickedness and 
neglect : one needs an example like his in this 
life to raise one from the unprofitable and mis- 
erable concerns of every dny, and to teach one 
to believe in nobler efforts than one's own self- 
ish and aimless wanderings could ever lead to 
unassisted. 

" Pray remember me very kindly to Miss 
Moineaux and to Mrs. Trevithic, and believe 
me, dear Miss Triquett, very sincerely yours, 
" Mary Myles." 

" Is Mrs. Trevithic again suffering from neu- 
ralgia ? Why is not she able to be with her hus- 
band ?" 

"Why, indeed?" said Miss Moineaux, hear- 
ing this last sentence read out by Miss Triquett. 
This excellent spinster gave no answer. She 
read this letter twice through deliberately ; 
then she tied her bonnet securely on, and trot- 
ted off to Gummers and Co. Tlien, having dis- 
pensed the bounties and accepted the thanks of 
the poor creatures, she determined to run the 
chance of finding Mrs. Trevithic at home. " It 
is my painful dooty," said Triquett to herself, 
shaking her head — " my painful dooty. Anne 



Trevithic should go to her husband ; and I will 
tell her so. If I were Mr. Trevithic's wife, 
should I leave him to toil alone ? No, I should 
not. Should I permit him to seek sympathy 
and consolation with another, more fascinating, 
perhaps ? No, certainly not. And deeply grate- 
ful should I have felt to her who warned me on 
my fatal career ; and surely my young friend 
Anne will be grateful to her old friend whose 
finger arrests her on the very edge of the dark 
precipice." Miss Triquett's reflections had risen 
to eloquence by the time she readied the rectory 
door. A vision of Anne clinging to her in tears, 
imploring her advice, of John shaking her warm- 
ly by the hand and murmuring that to Miss Tri- 
quett they owed the renewed happiness of their 
home, beguiled the way. " Where is Mrs. Trev- 
ithic ?" she asked the butler, in her deepest 
voice. "Leave us," said Miss Triquett to the 
bewildered menial, as he opened the drawing- 
room door and she marched into the room ; 
and then encountering Mrs. Trevithic, she sud- 
denly clasped her in her well-meaning old arms. 

"I have that to say to you," said Miss Tri- 
quett, in answer to Anne's amazed exclamation, 
" which I fear will give you pain ; but were I 
in your place, I should wish to hear the truth." 
The good old soul was in earnest ; her voice 
trembled, and her little black curls shook with 
agitation. 

"Pray do not hesitate to mention any thing," 
said Mrs. Trevithic, surprised but calm, and sit- 
ting down and preparing to listen attentively. 
" I am sure any thing you would like to have 
attended to — " 

Miss Triquett, at tlie invocation, pulled out 
the letter from her pocket. " Remember, only 
remember this," she said, "this comes from a 
young and attractive woman." And then in a 
clear and ringing voice she read out poor Mary's 
letter, with occasional unspeakable and pene- 
trating looks at Anne's calm features. 

Poor little letter ! It had been written in the 
sincerity and innocence of Mary's heart. Any 
one more deeply read in such things might have 
wondered why Colonel Hambledon's name should 
have been brought into it ; but as it was, it caused 
one poor jealous heart to beat with a force, a se- 
cret throb of sudden jealousy, that nearly choked 
Anne for an instant as she listened, and a faint 
pink tinge came rising up and coloring her face. 

"Remember, she is very attractive," Miss 
Triquett re-echoed, folding up the page. " Ah ! 
be warned, my dear young friend ! Go to him ; 
throw yourself into his arms ; say, ' Dearest, 
darling husband, your little wife is by your side 
once more ; / will be your comforter !' Do not 
hesitate." Poor old Triquett, completely car- 
ried away by the excitement of the moment, 
had started from her seat, and with extended 
arms had clasped an imaginary figure in the air. 
It was ludicrous, it was pathetic, to see this poor 
old silly meddlesome creature quivering, as her 
heart beat and bled for the fate of others. She 
had no tear or emotions of her own. It was 
absurd — was it not? — that she sho'uld care so 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLEK. 



219 



deeply for things whicli could not affect her in 
the least degree. There was Anne, with her 
usual self-possession, calmly subduing her irri- 
tation. She did not smile ; slic did not frown ; 
she did not seem to notice this momentary 
ebullition. To me it seems that, of the two, 
my sympathy is with Miss Triquett, Let us be 
absurd, by all means, if that is the price which 
must be paid for something which is well worth 
its price. 

Miss Triquett's eyes were full of tears. "I 
am impetuous, Mrs. Trevithic," she said. " My 
aunt has often found fault with me for it. Pray 
excuse me if I have interfered unwarrantably." 

" Interference between married people rarely 
does any good. Miss Triquett," said Anne, stand- 
ing up with an icy platitude, and unmistakably 
showing that she considered the visit at ati end. 

" Good-bye," said poor Miss Triquett, wist- 
fully. "Kemember me most kindly to your 
papa." 

" Certainly," said Mrs. Trevithic. "I am 
afraid you will have a disagreeable walk back ' 
in the rain. Miss Triquett. Good-evening. [ 
Pray give my compliments to Miss Moineaux." I 

The old maid trudged off alone into the mud 
and the rain, with a mortified sense of having 
behaved absurdly, disappointed and tired, and 
vaguely ashamed and crestfallen. The sound 
of the dinner-bell ringing at the rectory as she 
trudged down the hill in the dark and dirt did 
not add to her cheerfulness. 

Anne, with flushed I'ed cheeks and trembling 
hands, as Triquett left the room, sank down 
into her chair for a moment, and then, sudden- 
ly starting up, busied herself exactly as usual 
with her daily task of putting the drawing-room 
in order before she went up to dress. Miss Tri- 
quett's seat she pushed right away out of sight. 
She collected her father's writing-materials and 
newspapers, and put them straight. She then 
re-read her husband's last few lines. There was 
nothing to be gleaned from them. She replen- 
ished the flower-stands, and suddenly remem- 
bering that it was Mrs. Myles who had given 
them to her, she seized one tall glass fabric and 
all but flung it angrily on the ground. But re- 
flecting that if it were broken it would spoil the 
pair, she put it back again into its corner, and 
contented herself with stuffing in all the ugliest 
scraps of twigs, dead leaves and flowers from 
the refuse of her basket. 

The rector and his daughter dined at five ; it 
was a whim of the old man's. Anne clutched 
Dulcie in her arms before she went down after 
dressing. The child had never seen her mamma 
so excited, and never remembered being kissed 
like that before by her. " D'oo lub me vely 
mush to-^ay, mamma ?" said Dulcie, pathetic- 
allj'. "Is it toz I have my new fock ?" 

Old Mr. Bellingham came in at the sound 
of the second bell, smiling as usual, and rubbing 
his comfortable little fat hands together ; he did 
not remark that any thing was amiss with his 
daughter, though he observed that there was 
not enough cayenne ia the gravy of the veal 



cutlets, and tliat the cook had forgotten the 
necessary tea-spoonful of sugar in the soup. 
For the first time since he could remember, 
Anne failed to sympathize with his natural 
vexation, and seemed scarcely as annoyed as 
usual at the neglect which had been shown. 
Mr. Bellingham Mas vexed with her for her in- 
difference : he always left the scolding to her; 
he liked everything to go smooth and comforta- 
ble, and he did not like to be called upon per- 
sonally to lose liis temper. ' ' For what we have 
received" — and the butler retires with the 
crumbs and the cloths, and the little old gentle- 
man — who has had a fire lighted, for the evenings 
are getting chilly — draws comfortably in to his 
chimney-corner ; while Anne, getting up from 
her place at the head of the table, says abruptly 
that she must go up stairs and see what Dulcie 
is about. A restless mood had come over her ; 
something unlike any thing she had ever felt be- 
fore. Little Triquett's eloquence, which had 
not even seemed to disturb Anne at the time, 
had had full time to sink into this somewhat 
torpid apprehension, and excite Mrs. Trevithic's 
indignation. It was not the less fierce because 
it had smouldered so long. 

"Insolent creature!" Anne said to herself, 
working herself up into a passion; "how dare 
she interfere ? Insolent, ridiculous creature ! 
'Remember that that woman is attractive' — 
How dare she speak so to me ? Oh, they are all 
in league — in league against me!" cried poor 
Anne, with a moan, wringing her hands with 
all the twinkle of stones upon her slim white 
fingers. "John does not love me, he never 
loved me ! He will not do as I wish, though 
he promised and swore at the altar he would. 
And she — she is spreading her wicked toils 
round him, and keeping him there, while I am 
here alone — all alone ; and he leaves me ex- 
posed to the insolence of those horrible old 
maids. Papa eats his dinner and only thinks 
of the flavor of the dishes, and Dulcie chatters 
to her doll and don't care, and no one comes 
when I ring," sobbed Mrs. Trevithic, in a burst 
of tears, violently tugging at the bell -rope. 
" Oh, it is a shame, a shame !" 

Only as she wiped awa}' the tears a gleam of 
determination came into Mrs. Trevithic's blue 
eyes, and the flush on her pale cheeks deepened. 
She had taken a resolution. This is what she 
would do — this was her resolution : she would 
go and confront him there on the spot and re- 
mind him of his duty — he who was preaching to 
others. It was her right; and then — and then 
she would leave him forever, and never return 
to Sandsea to be scoffed at and jeered at by 
those horrible women, said Anne vaguely to her- 
self as the door opened and the maid appeared. 
"Bring me a Bradshaiv, Judson,'" said ]\Irs. 
Trevithic, very much in her usual tone of voice, 
and with a great effort recovering her equanimity. 
The storm had passed over, stirring the waters 
of this overgrown pool, breaking away the weeds 
which were growing so thickly on the stagnant 
surface, and rippling the slow shallows under- 



220 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



neath. It seems a contradiction to write of 
this dull and unimpressionable woman now and 
then waking and experiencing some vague emo- 
tion "and realization of experiences which had 
been slowly gathering, and apparently unno- 
ticed, for a long time before : but who does not 
count more than one contradiction among their 
experiences ? It was not Anne's fault that she 
could not understand, feel quickly and keenly, 
respond to the calls which stronger and more 
generous natures might make upon her; her 
tears fell dull and slow long after the cause, un- 
like the quick bright drops that would spring to 
Mary Miles's clear eyes — Mary whom the other 
woman hated with a natural, stupid, persistent 
hatred tliat nothing ever could cliange. 

Judson, the maid, who was not deeply read 
in human nature and who respected her mis- 
tress immensely as a model of decision, pre- 
cision, deliberate determination, was intensely 
amazed to hear that she was to pack up that 
night, and that Mrs. Trevithic would go to Lon- 
don that evening by the nine-o'clock train. 

"Send for a fly directly, Judson, and dress 
Miss Dulcie." 

"Dress Miss Dulcie?" Judson asked bewil- 
dered. 

"Yes, Miss Dulcie will come too," said Anne, 
in a way that left no remonstrance. 

She did not own it to herself; but by a strange 
and wayward turn of human nature, this woman 
— who was going to reproach her husband, to 
leave him forever, to cast herself adrift from 
him — took Dulcie with her : Dulcie, a secret 
defense, a bond and a strong link between them, 
that she knew no storm or tempest would ever 
break. 

Mr. Bellingham was too much astounded to 
make a single objection. He thought his daugh- 
ter had taken leave of her senses when she came 
in and said good-bye. 

Poor thing, she, too, felt at moments as if 
her senses were deserting her ; the storm raging 
in her heart was a fierce one. Gusts of passion 
and jealousy were straining and beating and 
tearing; "sails ripped, seams opening wide, 
and compass lost." Poor Anne, whose emo- 
tions were all the more ungovernable when they 
occasionally broke from the habitual restraint in 
which she held them, sat in her corner of the 
carriage, torturing herself, and picturing to her- 
self Trevithic enslaved, enchanted. If she could 
have seen the poor fellow adding up long lists 
of figures in his dreary little office, by tlie liglit 
of a smoking lamp, I think her jealousy might 
have been appeased. 

All the way to town Anne sat silent in her 
corner; but if she deserved punishment, poor 
thing, she inflicted it tlien upon herself, and with 
an art and an unrelenting determination for 
which no other executioner would have found 
the courage. 

They reached the station at last, with its lights 
and transient life and bustle. A porter called 
a cab. Dulcie, and the maid, and Mrs. Trevith- 
ic got in. They were to sleep at the house of 



an old .lady, a sister of Mr. Bellingham's, who 
was away, as Anne knew, but whose housekeep- 
er would admit them. 

And then the journey began once more across 
dark cuts, winding thoroughfares, interminable 
in their lights and darknesses, across dark places, 
that may have been squares. The darkness 
changed and lengthened the endless road : they 
had left Oxford Street, with its blazing shops; 
they had crossed the Park's blackness ; tlie roll 
of the wheels was like the tune of some dismal 
night-march. The maid sat with Dulcie asleep 
in her arms, but presently Dulcie woke up with 
a shrill piteous outcry. "I'se so ti'ed," she 
sobbed in the darkness, the coldness, the dull trip 
of the rain, the monotonous sound of tlie horse's 
feet striking on the mud. "I wan' my tea; 
I'se so ti'ed, wan' my little bed " — this was her 
piteous litany. 

Anne was very gentle and decided with her, 
only once she burst out, "Oh, don't, don't, I 
can not bear it, Dulcie." 



CHAPTER IX. 



HASTY PUDDING AND BLOWS FEOM A CLDB. 

Our lives often seem to answer strangely to 
our wishes. Is there some hidden power by 
which our spirits woi'k upon the substance of 
which our fate is built? Jack wished to fight. 
Assault him now, dire spirit of ill-will, of des- 
pondency, and that most cruel spirit of all, call- 
ed calumny. This tribe of giants are like the 
bottle-monsters of the Arabian Nights, intangi- 
ble, fierce, sly, remorseless, springing up sudden- 
ly, mighty shadows coming in the night and 
striking their deadly blows. They raise their 
clubs (and these clubs are not trees torn from 
the forest, but are made from the forms of hu- 
man beings massed together), and the clubs fall 
upon the victim and he is crushed. 

There was a brandy-and-watcr weekly meet- 
ing at Hammersley called " Ours," every Thurs- 
day evening, to which many of the tradespeople 
were in the habit of resorting and there discuss- 
ing the politics of the place. Mr. Bulcox had 
long been a member, so was Pitchley the grocer, 
and Oker himself did not disdain to join the 
party ; and as John was not there to contradict 
them, you may be sure these people told their 
own story. How it spread I can not tell, but 
it is easy to imagine :. one rumor after another 
to the hurt and disadvantage of poor Trevithic 
beg.an to get about. Reformers are necessarily 
unpopular among a certain clnss. The blind 
and the maimed and the halt worshij)ped the 
ground Trevithic stood upon at first. ." He was 
a man as would see to their rights," they said; 
"and if he had his way, would let them have 
tlicir snuflTand a drop of something comfortable. 
Ho had iiis cranks. Tliese open windows gave 
'em the rheumatics, and this sloppin' and washin' 
was all along of it, and for all the talk there 
were some things but what they wouldn't deny 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



was more snug in Bulcox's time than now ; but 
he were a good creature for all that, Mr. Trev- 
ithic, and meant well he did," etc., etc. Only 
when the snuft" and the comfortable drop did not 
come as they expected, and the horrors of the 
past dynasty began to be a little forgotten— at 
the end of a montR or so of whitewashing and 
cleansing and reforming, the old folks began to 
grumble again much as usual. Trevithic could 
not take away their years and aches and ])ains 
and wearinesses, and make the workhouse into 
a bower of roses, and the old people into lovely 
young lasses and gallant lads again. 

He had done his best, but he could not work 
miracles. 

It happened that a Lincolnshire doctor writ- 
ing from Downham to the Jujnter not long af- 
ter, eloquently describing the symptoms, the 
treatment, the means of prevention for this new 
sort of cholera, spoke of the devotion of some 
and the curious indifference of others. "Will 
it be believed," he said, "that in some places 
the clergyman has been known to abandon his 
flock at the first threat of danger— a threat which 
in one especial case at F. not far from here was 
not fulfilled, although the writer can testify from 
his own experience to the truth of the above 
statement?" 

As far as poor Jack's interests were concerned 
it would have been better for him if the cholera 
had broken out at Featlierston ; it would have 
brought him back to his own home. But Pen- 
fold recovered, Mrs. Hodge — the only other pa- 
tient — died, Hodge married again immediately, 
and that was the end of it. " Ours " took in 
the Jujnter ; somebody remembered that Down- 
ham and Featherston were both in the same neigh- 
borhood ; some one else applied the story, and 
Bulcox and the gas-fitter between them concocted 
a paragraph for the Anvil, the great Hammersley 
organ ; and so ill-will and rumor did their work, 
while Jack went his rounds in the wards pf St. 
Magdalene's, looking sadder than the first day 
he had come, although the place was cleaner, 
the food warmer and better, the sick people bet- 
ter tended than ever before ; for the guardians 
had been persuaded to let in certain deaconesses 
of the town — good women, who nursed for love 
and did not steal the tea. But in the mean 
time this odd cabal which had set in had risen 
and grown, and from every side Jack began to 
meet with cold looks and rebuffs. He had ill 
used his wife, deserted her, they said ; abandon- 
ed his parish from fear of infection. He had 
forged, he had been expelled from his living. 
There was nothing that poor Jack was not ac- 
cused of by one person or another. One day 
when his friend Austin came in with the last 
number of the Anvil, and showed him a very 
spiteful paragraph about himself, Jack only 
shrugged his shoulders. " We understand that 
the gentleman whose extraordinary revelations 
respecting the management of our work-house 
have been met by some with more credence 
than might have been expected, considering the 
short time which had passed since he first came 



among us, is the rector alluded to in a recent 
letter to the Jujnter from a medical man, who 
deserted his parish at the first alarm of cholera." 
" Can this be true ?" said Austin, gravely. 

"Mrs. Hodge certainly died of the cholera," 
Jack answered, " and Penfold was taken ill and 
recovered. Those are the only two cases in my 
parish." 

"I am afraid that Skipper did not behave 
very well ; in fact, I had to write to him to go 
back." 

A little later in the day, as the two young 
men were walking along the street, they met 
Mr. Oker puffing along the pavement. He 
stopped as usual to rub bis hands when he saw 
Trevithic. 

"'As your attention been called, sir," he said, 
" to a paragraft in the Hanvil, that your friends 
should contradict, if possible, sir? It's mos' 
distressin' when such things gets into the papers. 
They say at the club that some of the guardians 
is about to ask for an account of the sick-fund 
money, sir, which, I believe, Mr. Skipper put 
into your 'ands, sir. For the present this par- 
agraft should be contradicted, if possible, sir." 

Oker was an odious creature, insolent and 
civil ; and as he s]5oke he gave a sly, spiteful 
glance into Jack's face. Trevithic was perfect- 
ly unmoved, and burst out laughing. "My 
good Mr. Oker," he said, "you will be sorry to 
hear that there is no foundation whatever in the 
paragraph. It is some silly tittle-Jattling tale, 
which does not affect me in the least. If any 
one is to blame, it is Mr. Skipper, the work-house 
chaplain, who was at Featherston in my place. 
You can tell your friends at the club that they 
have hit the wrong man. Good-day." And 
the young fellow marched on his way with Mr. 
Austin, leaving Oker to recover as best he could. 

"I'm afraid they will give you trouble yet," 
Austin said, "King Stork though you are." 

When Jack appeared before the board on the 
next Wednesday, after the vote had been passed 
for dismissing the Bulcoxes, it seemed to him 
that one-half of the room greeted his entrance 
with a scowl of ill-will and disgust, the other 
half with alarm and suspicion. No wonder. 
It was Jack's belief that some of the guardians 
were seriously implicated in the charges which 
had been brought against Bulcox; others were 
certainly so far concerned that the Jujiiter had 
accused them of unaccountable neglect; and 
nobody likes to be shown up in a leader even 
for merely neglecting his duties. 

All tliis while the work-house had been in a 
commotion ; the master and mistress were only 
temporarily fulfilling their duties until a new 
couple should have been appointed. Tlie Board, 
chiefly at the instance of Oker the gas-fitter, 
and Pitchley the retail grocer, did not press the 
charges brought against Mr. Bulcox ; but they 
contented themselves with dismissing him and 
his wife. It was not over pleasant for Trevithic 
to meet them about the place, as he fcould not 
help doing occasionally ; but there was no help 
for it, and he bore the disagreeables of the place 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



as best he could, until Mr. and Mrs. Evans, the 
newly appointed master and matron, made their 
appearance. The Board was very civil, but it 
was any thing but cordial to Trevithic. Jack, 
among other things, suspected that Pitchley him- 
self supplied the bad tea and groceries which had 
been so much complained of, and had exchanged 
various bottles of port from the infirmary for 
others of a better qualit}', which were served at 
the master's own table. So the paupers told 
him. 

Meanwhile the opposition had not been idle. 
It was Bulcox himself, I think, who had discov- 
ered tliat Jack, in administering the very limit- 
ed funds at his disposal, had greatly neglected 
the precaution of tickets. One or two ill-con- 
ditioned people, whom Trevithic had refused to 
assist, had applied to the late master, and assur- 
ed him that Trevithic was not properly dispens- 
ing the money at his command. One tipsy old 
woman in particular was very indignant ; and, 
judging by her own experience, did not hesitate 
to accuse the chaplain of keeping what was not 
his own. 

This credible witness in rags and battered 
wires stood before the chairman when Jack came 
in. It seems impossible that any body should 
liave seriously listened to a complaint so absurd 
and unlikely. But it must be remembered that 
many of tlie people present were already ill-dis- 
posed, that some of them were weak, and others 
stupid, and they would not have been sorry to 
get out of their scrape by discovering Jack to be 
of their own flesh and blood. 

Trevithic heard them without a word, me- 
chanically buttoning up his coat, as he had a 
trick of doing, and then in a sudden indignation 
he tore it open, and from his breast-pocket drew 
the small book in which he had made all his 
notes. "Here," said he, "are my accounts. 
They were made hastily at the time, but they 
are accurate, and you will see that I have paid 
every farthing away that was handed over to me 
by Mr. Skipper, and about twice the amount 
besides, out of my own pocket. You can send 
for the people to whom I have paid the money, 
if you like." The little book went travelling 
about from one hand to another, while the re- 
morseless Trevithic continued, " I now in my 
turn demand that the ledgers of these gentle- 
men " — blazing round upon the retail grocer and 
Oker the gas-fitter — "be produced here im- 
mediately upon the spot, witliout any previous 
inspection, and that I, too, may hare the satis- 
foction of clearing up my doubts as to their con- 
duct." "That is fair enough," said one or two 
of the people present. "It's quite impossible, 
unheard of," said some of the others; but the 
majority of the guardians present were honest 
men, who were roused at last, and the ledgers 
were actually sent for. 

I have no time here to explain the long course 
of fraud which these books disclosed. The 
grocer was found to have been supplying the 
house at an enormous percentage, with quanti- 
ties differing in his book and in that of the mas- 



ter, who must again have levied a profit. The 
gas-fittter, too, turned out to be the contractor 
from a branch establishment, and to have also 
helped himself. This giant of peculation cer- 
tainly fell dead upon the floor when he laid 
open his accounts before the Board, for Ham- 
mersley Work-house is now one of the best man- 
aged in the whole kingdom. 



CHAPTER X. 



JACK HELPS TO DISENCHANT THE BEAUTIFUL 
LADY. 

Fannt Garnier bustled home one afternoon, 
brimming over, good soul, with rheumatisms, 
chicken-poxes, and other horrors that were not 
liorrors to her, or interjections, or lamentations ; 
but new reasons for exertions which were al- 
most beyond her strengtli at times — as now, 
when she said wearily, " that she must go back 
to her ward ; some one was waiting for things 
that she had promised." She was tired, and 
Mary, half ashamed, could not help offering to 
go in her cousin's place. It seemed foolish to 
refrain from what she would have done yester- 
day in all simplicity, because there was a chance 
that Hambledon was there to-day, or Trevithic, 
who was Hambledon's friend, if not quite Ham- 
bledon himself, who talked to him and knew his 
mind, and could repeat his talk. 

When Mary reached the infirm-ward, where 
she was taking her jellies, and bird's-eye and 
liquorice, her heart gave a little flutter, for she 
saw that two figures were standing by one of 
the beds. One was Jack, who turned round to 
greet her as she came up with her basket on her 
arm. The other was Hambledon, who looked 
at her and then turned away. As for all the 
old women in their starched nightcaps, it was a 
moment of all-absorbing excitement to them — 
sitting bolt upright on their beds, and bowing 
affably, as was the fashion in the infirm-ward. 
It was quite worth while to be civil to the gen- 
try, let alone manners ; you never knew but 
what they might have a quarter of a pound of 
tea or a screw of snufi in their pockets. " Law 
bless you, it was not such as them as denies 
themselves anythink they' may fancy." Such 
was the Hammersley creed. 

As she came up, Mary made an efi'ort, and 
in her most self-possessed and woman-of-the- 
worldest manner put out her hand again and 
laughed, and exclaimed at this meeting. Her 
shyness, and the very efibrt she made to conceal 
it, gave her an artificial manner that chilled and 
repelled poor Hambledon as no shyness or hes- 
itation would have done. " She's no heart," 
said the poor Colonel to himself. *' She don't 
remember. She would only laugh at me." 
He forgot that Mary was not a child, not even a 
very young woman ; that this armor of expedi- 
ency had grown up naturally with years and with 
the strain of a solitary life. It is a sort of de- 
fense to which tlie poor little hedgehogs of 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



223 



women, such as Mary Myles, resort sometimes. 
It meant very little, but it frightened the Colo- 
nel away. Mrs. Myles heard him go as she 
bent over poor old Mrs. Crosspoint, and her 
heart gave a little ache, which was not entirely 
of sympathy for the poor old thing's troubles. 

However, Mary had a little talk with Trev- 
ithic in the dark as she crossed the courts and 
passages, and he walked beside her, wliich did 
her good, though she said nothing that any one 
who did not know would have construed into 
more than it seemed to mean. 

She told him a little about her past life. She 
did not tell him that Colonel Hambledon had 
once asked her to come into his life ; but Trev- 
ithic knew all that she wanted to say as he lis- 
tened to the voice speaking in the dark — the 
sweet low voice with the music in it — a revela- 
tion came to him there in the archway of that 
narrow work-house stone passage. 

A revelation came to him, and that instant, 
as was his way, he acted upon it. " I think 
some people — " he began, and then he stopped. 
" I think you should secure a friend," he said 
quickly, in an odd voice. " You should marry," 
and he faltered, as he made way for two poor 
women who limped past on their way to their 
corners in the great pigeon-holes case of human 
suiFering. That little shake in his voice fright- 
ened Trevithic. What was it to him ? How 
did Mary Myles's fate concern him? He let 
her out at the great gate. He did not offer to 
walk back with her. The great iron bars closed 
with a clang, as she went away out into the dim 
world that was surging round about these prison 
walls. He would go back to Anne, Trevithic 
said to himself; even while the last grateful 
words were uttering in his ears, and the sweet 
quick eyes still lighting up for him the dullness 
of the stony place. Mary Myles went back 
alone ; and all that night Jack lay awake think- 
ing, turning some things in his mind and avoid- 
ing others, wondering what he should say to 
Hambledon, what he should leave unsaid : for 
some nameless power had taught him to under- 
stand now, as he never had understood before, 
what was passing in other minds and hearts. 
A power too mighty for my poor Jack to en- 
counter or hope to overcome in fight, a giant 
from whom the bravest can only turn away — so 
gentle is he, so beautiful, so humble in his ir- 
resistible might, that though many might con- 
quer him if they would, they will not, and that 
is the battle. 

And I think this giant must have been that 
nameless one we read of in the story, whom Jack 
did not care to fight, but he locked him up and 
barred him in the castle, and bolted gates and 
kept him safe beliind them : the giant who in 
return for this strange treatment gave Jack the 
sword of sharpness and the cap of knowledge. 
The sword pricked fiercely enough, the cap of 
knowledge weighed, ah, too heavily, but Jack, 
as we know, did not shrink from pain. 

The imprisoned giant touched some kindly 
chord in Jack's kind heart. Was he not Ham- 



bledon's friend ? was he not a link between two 
people, very near, and yet very far apart ? Had 
Mary Myles's kindness been quite disinterested? 
he asked himself, a little bitterly, before he 
spoke ; — spoke a few words which made Charles 
Hambledon flush up and begin to tug at his mus- 
tache, and which decided Mary Myles's fote as 
much as Anne Bellingham's tears had decided 
Jack's three years ago. 

" Why don't you try again ?" Trevithic said. 
"I think there might be a chance for you." 

The Colonel did not answer, but went on pull- 
ing at his mustache. Trevithic was silent, too, 
and sighed. " I never saw any one like her," 
he said at last. " I think she carries a blessing 
wherever she goes. I, who am an old married 
man, may say so much, mayn't I ? I have seen 
some men go on their knees for gratitude for 
what others are scarcely willing to put out their 
hands to take." 

Poor Jack ! The cap of knowledge was heavy 
on his brow as he spoke. He did not look to 
see the eftcct of his words. What would he not 
have said to serve her ? He walked away to 
the desk where he kept his notes and account- 
books, and took pen and paper, and began to 
write. 

"It is a lucky thing for me that you are a 
married man," the Colonel said, with an uneasy 
laugh. "It's one's fate. They won't like the 
connection at home. She don't care about it 
one way or another, for all you say ; and yet I 
find myself here again and again. I have a 
great mind to go this very evening." 

" I am writing to her now," Trevithic answer- 
ed, rather incoherently, after a minute. " The 
ladies have promised to come with me to-morrow 
to see the rectory-house at St. Bigot's. I shall 
call for them about twelve o'clock; and it will 
take us a quarter of an hour to walk there." 

It was a bright autumn morning, glittering 
and brilliant. Jack stood waiting for Mrs. ]\Iyles 
and her cousin in the little wood at the foot of 
the garden slope, just behind the lodge. A bird 
with outstretched wings, fluttered from the ivy- 
bed at his feet, and went and perched upon the 
branch of a tree. All the noises of life came to 
him from the town, glistening between the gleam 
of the trees : the fall of the hammer from the 
wood-yard where the men were at work, and the 
call of the church-bell to prayer, and the distant 
crow of the farm-yard upon the far-off hill, and 
the whistle of the engine, starting and speeding 
through the quiet country valley to the junction 
in the town, wliere the great world's gangways 
met and diverged. 

All this daily lifffwas going on, and John Trev- 
ithic struck with his stick at a dead branch of 
a tree. Why was work, so simple and straight- 
forward a business to some honest folks, so 
tangled and troubled and unsatisfactory to oth- 
ers ? In daily life hard labor is simple enough. 
Old Pcascud, down below in the kitchen-garden, 
turns over mother earth, throbbing with life and 
all its mysteries, with what he calls a "purty 
shovel," and pats it down, and complacantly 



22-t 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



thinks it is his own doing that the ivy-slips cut 
off the brancli which iie has stuck into the 
ground are growing and striking out fresh roots. 

Feascud is only a sort of shovel himself, des- 
tined to keep this one small acre out of the square 
acresvvhich cover the surface of the eartii in 
tolerable order, and he does it with a certain 
amount of spurring and pushing, and when his 
day's work is over hangs up comfortably on a 
nail and rests with an easy mind ; but Jack, who 
feels himself a shovel too, has no laws to guide 
him. Some of the grain he has sown has come 
up above the ground, it is true, but it is unsat- 
isfactory, after all ; he does not know whether or 
not his slips are taking root — one or two of them 
he has pulled up, like the children do, to see 
whether they are growing. 

As Jack stands moralizing, crow cocks, ring 
bells, strike hammers. It was a fitting chorus, 
distant and cheerful, and suggestive to the sweet 
and brilliant life of the lady for whom he waits. 
Not silence, but the pleasant echoes of life should 
accompany her steps, the cheerful strains of sum- 
mer, and the bright colors of spring. Trevithic 
saw every tiling brightened and lighted up by 
her presence, and thought tliat it was so in fact, 
poor fellow. Sometimes in a foul ward, when 
the dull sights and sounds oppressed him almost 
beyond bearing, with a sudden breath of relief 
and happiness the image of this charming and 
beautiful woman would pass before him, sweet 
and pure, and lovely and unsoiled amidst lovely 
things, far away from these ghastly precincts. 
What had such as she to do with such as these ? 
Heaven forbid that so fair a bird, with its ten- 
der song and glancing white plumage, should 
come to be choked and soiled and caged in the 
foul dungeons to which he felt called. John 
Trevithic, like many others, exaggerated, I think, 
to himself the beauty and the ugliness of the 
things he looked upon as they appeared to oth- 
ers ; not that things are not ten thousand times 
more beautiful, and more hideous too perhaps, 
than we have eyes to see or hearts to realize, 
but they are not so as far as the eyes with which 
others see them are concerned. To this sweet 
and beautiful and graceful woman the world was 
not so fair a place as to this careworn man with 
his haggard eyes and sad knowledge of life. He 
thought Mrs. Myles so far above him and be- 
yond him in all things, that he imagined that 
the pains of others must pain her and strike 
her soft heart more cruelly even than himself, 
that the loveliness of life was more necessary 
to her a thousand times than it could be to 
him. 

Meanwhile all the little dried pine-twigs were 
rustling and rippling, for she was coming down 
the little steep path, holding up her muslin skirts 
as she came, and stepping with her rapid slender 
footsteps, stooping and then looking up to smile. 
Mrs. Myles was always well dressed — there was 
a certain completeness and perfection of dainty 
smoothness and freshness about all her ways 
which belonged to her dress and her life, and 
her;very loves and dislikes. The soft flutter of 



her ribbons belongs to her as completely as the 
pointed ends of old Peascud's Sunday shirt- 
collars and the broad stiff tapes of his best waist- 
coat do to him, or as John Trevithic's fancies 
as he stands in the fir-wood. Another minute 
and she is there beside him, holding out her 

I hand and smiling with her sweet still eyes, and 
the bird flutters away from its branch. " Fan- 

! ny can not come," she said. "We must go 

I without her, Mr. Trevithic." 

A something — I can not tell you what — told 
Jack as she spoke that this was the last walk 

I they would ever take together. It was one of 
those feelings we all know and all believe in 
at the bottom of our hearts. This something, 
coming I know not from whence, going I know 
not where, suddenly began to speak in the silent 
and empty chambers of poor Trevithic's heart, 
echoing mournfully, but with a warning in its 
echoes that he had never understood before. 
This something seemed to say, No, No, No. It 
was like a bell tolling as they walked along the 
road. Jack led the way, and they turned off 
the high-road across a waste, through sudden 
streets springing uj) around them, across a bridge 
over a branch of tiie railway, into a broad black 
thoroughfare, which opened into the quiet street 
leading into Bolton Fields. The fields had long 
since turned to stones and iron-railings inclos- 
ing a church-yard, in the midst of which a church 
had been built. The houses all round the square 
were quaint red brick dwellings, with here and 

1 there a carved lintel to a doorway, and old stone 

j steps whitened and scrubbed by three or four 
generations of patient house-maids. The trees 
were bare behind the iron-railing; there was 
silence, though the streets beyond Bolton Fields 
were busy like London streets. Trevithic stop- 
ped at the door of one of the largest of these 
dwellings. It had straight windows like the 
others, and broken stone steps upon which the 
sun was shining, and tall iron railings casting 
slant shadows on the pavement. It looked 
quaint and narrow, with its liigh rooms and 
b.'ackened bricks, but it stood in sunshine. A 
child was peeping from one of the many-paned 
windows, and some birds were fluttering under 
the deep eaves of the roof. 

Jack led the way into the dark-panelled en- 
trance, and opened doors and windows, and ran 
up stairs. Mrs. Myles flitted here and there, 
suggested, approved of the quaint old liouse, 
with the sunny landings for Dulcie to play on, 
and the convenient cupboards for her elders, 
and quaint recesses, and the pleasant hints of 
an old world, more prosy and deliberate and 
less prosaic than to-day. There was a pretty 
little niche on the stairs, where Jack fancied 
Dulcie perching, and a window looking into the 
garden down below ; there was a little wooden 
dining-room, and a study with faded wire book- 
cases let into the walls. It was all in good or-, 
der, for Trevithic had had it cleaned and scrub, 
bed. The house was more cheerful than the 
garden at the back, where stone and weeds 
seemed to be flourishing unmolested. 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER, 



225 



"It is almost time to go," Mrs. Mylcs said 
at last, seeing Trevithic looking at liis watch. 

"Not yet — you have not half seen the gar- 
den," answered Trevithic, hastily. " Come this 
way." And Mary followed, wrapping her vel- 
vet cloak more closely round her slender shoul- 
ders. 

They were standing in the little deserted gar- 
den of the house, for the garden was all damp, 
as gardens ai-e which are rarely visited. The 
back of the house, less cheerful than the front, 
was close-shuttered, except for the windows 
Trevithic had opened. Some dreary aloe-trees 
were sprouting their melancholy spikes, a clump 
of fir-trees and laurel-bushes was shuddering in 
one corner; a long grass-grown lawn, with rank 
weeds and shabby flower-beds, readied from the 
black windows to the stony paths, in which, in 
some unaccountable manner, as is usual in de- 
serted places, the sand and gravel had grown in- 
to stones and lumps of earth and clay. Jack was 
strangely silent and distracted, and paced round 
and round the place in an unmeaning way. 

"This is very dreary," said Mrs. Myles, pull- 
ing her cloak still closer round her. " I like 
the house, but no one could be happy walking 
in this garden." 

Trevithic smiled a little sadly. "I don't 
know," he said. " I do^i't think happiness de- 
pends upon locality." 

Poor fellow, his outward circumstances were 
so prosperous, his inner life so sad and unto- 
ward. No wonder that he undervalued exter- 
nal matters, and counted all lost that was not 
from within. 

Mary Myles blushed, as she had a way of 
blushing when she was moved, and her voice 
failed into a low measured music of its own. 
"I envy you," she said. "You do not care, 
like me, for small things, and are above the in- 
fluences of comfort and discomfort, of mere per- 
sonal gratifications. It has been the curse of 
my life that I have never risen above any thing, 
but have fallen shamefully before such easy 
temptations that I am ashamed even to recall 
them. I wonder what it is like," she said, 
with her bright, half-laughing, half-admiring 
smile, "to be, as you are, above small distrac- 
tions, and able to fight real and great battles — 
and win them, too ?" she added, kindly and 
heartily. 

A very faint mist came before Trevithic's 
eyes as Mary spoke, unconsciously encouraging 
him, unknowingly cheering him with words 
and appreciation — how precious she did not 
know, nor did he dare to tell himself. 

"I am afraid what you describe is a sensa- 
tion very few people know," said Trevithic. 
"We hre all, I suspect, trying to make the best 
of our defeats ; triumphant, if we are not utter- 
ly 'routed." 

"And have you been routed at Feathers- 
ton?" Mrs. Myles asked. 

" Completely," said Trevithic. "Anne will 
retreat with flying colors, but I am ignobly de- 
feated, and only too thankful to run away and 
P 



come and live here — in this very house perhaps 
— if she will consent to it." 

"Anne is a happy woman to have any one 
to want her," said INIrs. Myles, coming back to 
her own thoughts with a sigh; "people love 
me, but nobody wants me." 

" Here is a friend of yours, I think," said 
Jack, very quickly, in an odd sort of voice ; for 
as he spoke he saw Hambledon coming in from 
the passage-door. Mrs. Myles saw him too, 
and guessed in an instant why Trevithic had 
detained her. Now in her turn she tried to 
hold him back. 

"Do you believe in expiations, ^Mr. Trev- 
ithic ?" said Mary, still strangely excited and 
beginning to tremble. 

"I believe in a grateful heart, and in love 
and humility, and in happiness when it com.es 
across our way," said Jack, with kind sad eyes, 
] looking admiringly at the sweet and appealing 
face. 

Mary was transformed. She had laid aside 
all her gentle pride and self-contained sadness : 
she looked as she must have looked long ago, 
■ when slie was a girl, humble, imploring, con- 
fused ; and though her looks seemed to pray 
I him to remain, Trevithic turned away abruptly, 
and he went to meet Hambledon, who was com- 
ing shyly along the weedy path, a tall and pros- 
perous-looking figure in tlie sunshine and deso- 
lation. " You are late," Trevithic said, with a 
kind, odd smile; "I had given you up." And 
then he left them and went into the house. 

As Jack waited, talking to the housekeeper 
meanwhile, he had no great courage to ask 
himself many questions ; to look behind ; to 
realize very plainly what had happened ; to 
picture to himself what might have been had 
fate willed it otherwise. He prayed an honest 
prayer. "Heaven bless them," he said in his 
heart, as he turned his steps away and left them 
together. He waited now patiently, walking in 
and out of the bare rooms, where people had 
once lived and waited too, who were gone with 
their anxious hearts, and their hopes, and their 
hopeless loves, and their defeats, to live in other 
houses and mansions which are built elsewhere. 
Was it all defeat for him? — not all. Had he 
not unconsciously wronged poor Anne, and 
given her just cause for resentment ; and was 
any thing 'too late while hope and life remain- 
ed ? If he could not give to his wife a heart's 
best love and devotion — if she herself had for- 
bidden this — he could give her friendship, and 
in time the gentle ties of long use and common 
interest and Dulcie's dear little arms might 
draw them closer together — so Jack thought in 
this softened mood. 

John had waited a long time, pacing up and 
down the empty rooms with the faded wire 
bookcases for furniture, and the melancholy 
pegs and hooks and wooden slabs which people 
leave behind them in the houses they abandon : 
nearly an hour had passed and the two there 
out in the garden were talking still by the lau- 
rel-bushes. What was he waiting for? lie ask- 



22Z 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



ed himself presently. Had they not forgotten 
his very existence ? There was work to be 
done — he had better go. "What had he waited 
for so long ? What indeed, poor fellow ! He 
had been longing for a word ; one sign. He 
only wanted to be remembered : with that 
strange selfish longing which pities the poor 
familiar self, he longed for some word of kind- 
ness and sign of recognition from tlie two who 
had forgotten that any where besides in all the 
world there were hearts that loved or longed or 
forgot. John trudged away patiently as soon as 
he had suddenly made clear to himself that 
it was time to go. lie knew the road well 
enough by this time, and cut off side turnings 
and came into the town — black and faded — even 
in this brilliant sunshine that was calling the 
people out of their houses, opening wide win- 
dows, drying the rags of clothes, brightening 
the weary faces. The children clustered round 
the lamp-posts, chattering and playing. One 
or two people said good-morning to him as he 
passed, who would have stared sulkily in a fog ; 
the horses in the road seemed to prick their 
ears, and the fly from the station, instead of 
crawling wearily along, actually passed him at 
a trot. Jack turned to look after it : a foolish 
likeness had struck him. It was but for an in- 
stant, and he forgot it as he reached the heavy 
door of the work-house. 

The porter was out, and the old pauper who 
let Jack in began some story to which he scarce- 
ly listened. He was full of the thought of those 
two there in the garden — happy ! ah, how happy 
in each other's companionship ; while he, desert- 
ed, lonely, discontented, miglit scarcely own to 
himself, without sin, that his home was a deso- 
late one ; that his wife was no wife, as he felt it; 
that life had no such prospects of love, solace, 
and sympathy for him, as for some of the most 
forlorn of the creatures under his care. It was 
an ill frame of mind coming so quickly after a 
good one — good work done, and peace-making, 
and a good fight won ; but the very giant he 
had conquered with pain and struggle had given 
him the cap of knowledge, and it pressed and 
ached upon his brow, and set its mark there. 
Trevithic put up his hand to his forehead weari- 
ly, as he walked along the dull paved courts and 
passed through one barred iron door after an- 
other. Mostof the old folks were sunning them- 
selves upon the benches, and the women were 
standing gossiping in the galleries of the house. 
There are stone galleries at Hammersley, from 
which the clothes are hung. So he came in, 
opening one last iron gate to his ofhce on the 
ground-floor, at the further extremity ofthe great 
building. It was not very far from the children's 
wards, and on these fine mornings the little crea- 
tures, with their quaint mobcaps, and straight 
bonnets, came scrambling down the flight of 
steps into the yards. The very young ones 
would play about a little bo-peep behind an iron 
grating, or clinging to the skirts of the limp fig- 
ures that were wearily lagging al)owt the place. 
But the children did not very long keep up their 



little baby frolics. Sad-faced little paupers in 
striped blue dresses would sometimes stand star- 
ing at Trevithic — with dark eyes gleaming in 
such world-weighed little faces, that his kind 
heart ached for them. His favorite dream for 
them was a children's holiday. It would almost 
seem that they had guessed his good intentions 
towards them to-day : a little stream was setting 
in in the direction of his office, a small group 
stood watching not far off. It made way before 
him and disappeared, and then, as he came near, 
he saw that the door was open. A little baby 
pauper was sitting on the flags and staring in, 
two other little children had crept up to the very 
threshold, a third had slipped its fingers into the 
liinge and was peeping through the chink, and 
then at the sound of his tired footsteps falling 
wearily on the pavement, there came a little cry of 
" Daddy, daddy !" The sweet little voice he 
loved best in the whole world seemed to fill the 
room, and Dulcie, his own little Dulcie, came to 
the door in the sunlight, and clasped him round 
the knees. 

Trevithic, with these little arms to hold him 
safe, felt as if his complaints had been almost 
impious. In one minute, indeed, he had forgot- 
ten them altogether, and life still had something 
for him to love and to cling to. The nurse ex- 
plained matters a littleno the bewildered chap- 
lain. Nothing had happened that she knew of. 
Mrs. Trevithic was gone to look for him. She 
had driven to Mrs. Myles's straight in the fly 
from the railway. She had left Miss Dulcie and 
her there to wait. She had left no message. 
Mrs. Trevithic had seemed put out like, said 
the nurse, and had made up her mind all of a 
sudden. They had slept in London at missis's 
aunt's. Trevithic was utterly bewildered. 

In the mean time it was clear that something 
must be done for Dulcie, who was getting hun- 
gry, now that her first little rapture was over (for 
raptures are hungry work). After some little 
demur, Trevithic told the girl to put on Miss 
Dulcie's cloak again. 

While John is talking to Dulcie in his little 
oflice, Anne had driven up to Mrs. Garnier's 
door, and been directed from hence to the rectory 
in Bolton Fields. It was thus she first ci'ossed 
the threshold of her husband's house. " I want 
to speak to the lady and gentleman," she said 
to the woman who let her in. And the house- 
keeper pointed to the garden and told her she 
would find them there. Anne, the stupid com- 
monplace woman, was shivering with passion 
and emotion as she passed througli the em.pty 
rooms ; a few letters were lying on the chimney 
that John had torn open; the window-shutter 
was flapping, the wood creaked under lier fierce 
angry footsteps. There, at the end of the path, 
under a little holly-tree, stood Mary Myles, and 
suddenly Anne, hurrying along in her passioti, 
clutched her arm with an angry fevered hand, 
and with a fierce flushed face confronted her. 
"Where is my husband?" hissed Anne. "You 
did not think that I should come .... How 
dare you take him from me?" 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



227 



Colonel Hambledon, who had only gone away 
for a step or two, came back, hearing a voice, 
with Mary's glove, which she had left on the 
broken seat where they had been sitting. 
•'What is this?" said he. 

"Where is he ?" cried the foolish stupid wom- 
an, bursting into tears. "I knew I should find 
him here with her. Where is my husband ?" 

"He has been gone some time, poor fellow," 
said the Colonel, with a look of repugnance and 
dislike that Anne saw and never forgot. " Mrs. 
Trevithic, why do you think such bad thoughts ?" 

While Mary Myles, indignant in her turn, 
cried, " Oh, for shame, for shame, Anne Trevith- 
ic ! You are cold-Iiearted yourself, and do you 
dare to be jealous of others ? You, who have 
the best and kindest husband any woman ever 
had in all the world." Mary, as she spoke 
clung with both hands to Hambledon's arm, 
trembling, too, and almost crying. The Colo- 
nel, in his happiness, could hardly understand 
that any one else should be unhappy on such a 
day. While he was comforting Mary, and en- 
treating her not to mind what that woman had 
said, Anne, overpowered with shame, conscience- 
smitten, fled away down the path and tlirough 
the house — " deadly pale, like a ghost," said the 
housekeeper afterwards — and drove straight to 
the work-house, where she had left her child. 
As she came to the great door, it opened with a 
dull sound, even before the driver had pulled at 
the big bell. 

Anne, who had got out of the carriage, stood 
in a bewildered sort of dream, stupidly staring 
at a little procession that was coming under the 
archway — a couple of paupers, the nursemaid, 
and, last of all, her husband, carrying little 
Dulcie in his arms, who were all advancing to- 
wards her. 

" Oh John ! I have been looking for you 
everywhere," she said, with a little cry, as with 
a revulsion of feeling she ran up to him, with 
outstretched hands. " Where have you been ? 
Mrs. Myles did not know, and I came back for 
Dulcie. We shall miss the train. Oh, where 
am I to go ?" 

Mrs. Trevithic, nervous, fluttered, bewildered, 
for perhaps the second time in her life, seemed 
scarcely to know what she was saying — she 
held up her cheek to be kissed; she looked 
about quite scared, and shrunk away again. 
" It's no use, you will be too angry to forgive 
me," she said ; " but about these trains . . . ." 

"What do you mean by the trains, Anne ?" 
her husband said. "Dulcie wants something 
to eat. Get into the carriage again." 

It is difficult to believe — Trevithic himself 
could not understand it — Anne obeyed without 
a word. He asked no questions when she burst 
out with an incoherent, "Oh John, they were 
so strange and unkind !" and then began to cry 
and cry and tremble from head to foot. 

It was not till they got to the hotel that Mrs. 
Trevithic regained her usual composure, and 
ordered some rooms and lunch off the carte for 
tlie whole party. Trevithic never asked what had 



happened, though he guessed well enough, and 
when Hambledon told him afterwards that Mrs. 
Trevithic had burst in upon tliem in the gar- 
den, it was no news to poor John. 

They had finished their dinner on the ground- 
floor room of the quiet old inn. Little Dulcie 
was perched at the window watching the people 
as they crossed and recrossed the wire-blind. 
A distant church-clock struck some quarters, 
the sound came down the street, and Trevithic 
smiled, saying, "I think you will be too late for 
your train, Anne, to-day." Anne's heart gave 
a throb as he spoke. She always thought peo- 
ple in earnest, and she looked up wistfully and 
tried to speak ; but the words somehow stuck in 
her throatr Meanwhile Trevithic looked at 
his watch, and jumped up in a sudden fluster. 
It was later than he imagined. He had his 
afternoon service at the work-house to attend to. 
It was Friday, and he must go. He had not a 
moment to lose, so he told his wife in a word 
as he seized his hat, and set off as hard as he 
could. He had not even a moment to respond 
to little Dulcie's signals of affection, and waves 
and capers behind the wire-blind. 

Anne, who had been in a curious maze all 
this time, sitting in her place at the table and 
watching him, and scarcely realizing the relief 
of his presence as he busied himself in the old 
way for her comfort and Dulcie's, carving the 
chicken and waiting on them both, understood 
all at once how great the comfort of his pres- 
ence had been. In her dull, sleepy way she 
had been basking in sunshine for the last two 
hours, after the storm of the day before. She 
had untied her bonnet, and thrown it down 
upon a chair, and forgotten to smooth her sleek 
hair ; her collar and ribbons were awry ; her 
very face had lost its usual placidity — it was 
altered and disturbed, and yet Jack thought he 
had never liked her looks so well, though he 
had never seen her so ruffled and self-forgetful 
in all the course of his married life. 

For the moment Mrs. Trevithic was strangely 
happy in this odd re-union. She had almost 
forgotten at the instant the morning's jealousy 
and mad expedition — Colonel Hambledon's 
look of scorn and Mary Myles's words — in this 
new unknown happiness. It seemed to her 
that she had never in her life before realized 
what the comfort might be of some one to 
love, to hold, to live for. She watched the 
quick clever hands dispensing the food for 
which, to tell the truth, she had no very great 
appetite, though she took all that her husband 
gave her. Had some scales fallen from her 
pale wondering eyes ? As he left the room slic 
asked herself, in her stupid way, what he had 
meant. Was this one little glimpse of home 
the last that she would ever know ? was it all 
over, all over? Anne tied her bonnet on 
again, and telling the maid to take care of lit- 
tle Dulcie, went out into the street again and 
walked off in the direction of the chapel. She 
had a vague wish to be there. She did not 
know that they would admit her ; but no diffi- 



:>28 



FIVE OLD FRIENDS. 



ciilties were made, and she passed for the sec- 
ond time under the big arch. Some one point- i nuoucu smu umn k, oijcun., uuu jjul uuu nci nii 
cd out the way, and she puslied open a green- — not without an eft'ort. " Are you going b: 



sorry if we pained you." Anne flushed and 
flushed and didn't speak, but put out her hand 

back 
l)aize door and went in ; and so Anne knelt in j directly, or are you going to stay with your hus- 
the bare little temple where tlie paupers' prayers I band?" said the colonel, shaking her heartily 
were offered up — humble prayers and white- I by the hand. 

wash, that answer their purpose as well perhaps Poor Anne looked up, scared, and shrank 
as Gothic, and iron castings, and flamboyant back once more — she could not bear to tell 
windows, as the beautiful clear notes of the , them that she did not know. She turned away 
choristers answering each other and bursting all hurt and frightened, looking about for some 



into triumphal utterance. The paupers were 
praying for their daily bread, hard, and dry, 
and' butterless ; for forgiveness for trespasses 
grosser and blacker perhaps than ours ; for de- 
liverance from evil of which Annie and others 



means of escape, and then at that moment she 
saw that John was coming up to them across 
the yard from the oflSce where he had gone to 
leave his surplice. 

"Oh John," she said, still bewildered, and 



perhaps have never realized ; and ceding with i going to meet him, and with a piteous face 



words of praise and adoration which we all use 
in truth, but which mean far, far more when 
uttered from that darkness upon which the di- 
vine light beams most splendidly. Anne for 
the first time in her life was kneeling a pauper 
in spirit, ashamed and touched, and repentant. 
There was no sermon, and Mrs. Trevithic got 
up from her knees and came away with her fel- 
low-petitioners and waited in the court-yard for 



here are Colonel Hambledon and Mary. 

" We have come to ask for your congratula- 
tions," the Colonel said, laughing and looking 
very happy ; "and to tell you that your match- 
making has been successful." 

Mary Myles did not speak, but put out her 
hand to Trevithic. 

Mrs. Trevithic meanwhile stood waiting her 
sentence. How new the old accustomed situa- 



John. The afternoon sun of this long eventful , tions seem as they occur again and again in the 
day was shining on the stones and casting the ' course of our lives. Waters of sorrow over- 
shadows of the bars and bolts, and brightening whelm in their depths, as do tlie clear streams 
sad faces of the old men and women, and the ^ of tranquil happiness, both rising from distant 
happy faces of two people who had also attend- sources, and flowing on either side of our paths, 
ed the service, and who now advanced arm in As 1 have said, the sight of these two, in their 
arm to where Anne was standing. She started i confidence and sympathy, filled poor Anne's 
back as she first saw them : they had been be- ' heart with a longing tliat slio had never known 
hind her in the chapel, and she had not known ^ before. Mary Myles, I think, guessed what was 



that they were there. 

The sight of the two had brought back with 
it all the old feeling of hatred, and shame, and 
mistrust ; all the good that was in her seemed 
to shrink and shrivel away for an instant at 
their approach, and at the same time came a 



in the other's mind — women feel one 
passing emotions — but the good Colo- 



passing 
another 
nel was utterly unconscious. 

"We have been asking your wife if she re- 
mains with you, or if she is going back direct- 
ly," said he. " I thought perhaps you would 



pang of envious longing. They seemed so i both come to dine with us before we go." 
liapjjy together ; so one, as, with a glance at There was a mist before Anne's eyes, an un 



one another, they both came forward. Was 
slie all alone when others were happy ? had 
she not of her own doing put her husband 
away from her, and only come to him to re- 
proach and leave him again ? For a woman 
of such obstinacy and limited perception as 
Mrs. Trevithic to have settled that a thing was 
to be, was reason enough for it to happen ; 
only a longing, passionate longing, came, that 
it might be otlierwise than she had settled ; 
that she might be allowed to stay — and a rush 
of the better feelings that had overcome her of 
late kept her there waiting to speak to these two 
who had scorned her. It was tliey who made 
tlie first advance. 

"I want to ask you to forgive me," said 
Mary, blushing, "any thing I may have said. 
Your husband has done us both such service, 
that I can't help asking you for his sake to for- 
get my hastiness." 

"You see we were taken aback," said the 
Colonel, not unkindly. " Shake hands, please, 
]\Irs. Trevithic, in token that you forgive us, 
and wish us joy. I assure you we are heartily 



peakable peace in her heart, as Jack drew her 
hand through his arm, and said, in his kind 
voice, " Of course she stays ; I am not going to 
let my belongings go away again, now that I 
have got them here." 

As they were walking back to the inn togeth- 
er, Anne told her husband of her morning's 
work, and John sighed as he listened. 

"We have both something to forgive," he 
said once moi'e, looking at her with his kind 
speaking eyes. 

Anne winced and looked away, and then her 
heart turned again, and she spoke and said, with 
real sensibility : — 

" I have nothing to forgive, John. I thought 
you were in the wrong, but it was I from tlie be- 
ginning." 

After a little time Trevithic and Anne and 
Dulcie went to live together in the old house in 
Bolton Fields. The woman was humbled, and 
did her best to make her husband's home hap- 
py, and John too remembered the past, and 
loved his wife, with all her faults, and did not 



JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. 



229 



ask too much of her, and kept clear, as best he 
could, of possible struggles and difficulties. His 
life was hard, but blows and fatigue he did not 
grudge, so long as he could help to deliver the 
land. Foul caverns were cleansed, ignorant 
monsters were routed, dark things were made 
light. He was not content in his parish to drive 
away evil ; he tried his best and strove to change 
it, and make it into good. These tangible drag- 
ons and giants were hard to fight, but once at- 
tacked they generally succumbed in the end, and 
lost perhaps one head or a claw in each succes- 
sive encounter, and then other champions rose 
up, and by degrees the monster began to full and 
dwindle away. But poor Trevithic's work is not 
over. Another giant is coming to meet him 
through the darkness. He is no hideous mon- 
ster of evil like the rest : his face is pitiless, but 
his eyes are clear and calm. His still voice says 
"Hold," and then it swells by degrees, and deaf- 
ens all other sound. "I am a spirit of truth, 
men call me evil because I come out of the dark- 
ness," the giant cries ; " but see, my works are 
good as well as bad ! See what bigotry, what 
narrow prejudice, what cruelty and wickedness 
and intolerance I have attacked and put to 
rout !" In the story-book it is Jack who is the 
conqueror ; he saws through the bridge by which 
the giant approaches, and the giant falls into the 
moat and is drowned. But, as for as I can see, 
the Jacks of this day would rather make a way 
for him than shut him out : some of the heroes 



who have tried to s.aw away the bridge have 
fallen into the moat with their enemy, and oth- 
ers are making but a weak defense, and in their 
hearts would be glad to admit him into the pal- 
ace of the King. 

Mrs. Trevitliic rarely goes into the garden nt 
the back of her house. The other day, being 
vexed with her husband about some trifling 
matter, she followed him out to remonstrate. 
He was standing with Dulcie by the prickly hol- 
ly-tree that she remembered so w^ell, and, seeing 
her coming, he put out his hand with a smile. 
The words of reproach died away on Anne's 
lips, and two bright spots came into her cheeks, 
as with a very rare display of feeling she sud- 
denly stooped and kissed the hand that held 
hers. 

As I finish the story of Jack Trcvithic, which, 
from the play in which it began, has turned to 
earnest, H. looks up from her knitting, and says 
that it is very unsatisfactory, and that she is 
getting tired of calling every thing by different 
names ; and she thinks she would like to go 
back to tlie realities of life again. In my dream- 
world they have been forgotten, for the fire is 
nearly out and the gray mist is spreading along 
the streets. It is too dark to write any more — 
an organ is playing a dismal tune, a carriage is 
rolling over the stones ; so I ring the bell for the 
lamp and the coals, and Susan comes in to shut 
the shutters. 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



TO 

J. ill. C. 



THE STOEY OF ELIZABETH. 



CHAPTER I, 

If siuging breatli, or echoing chord, 
To every hidden pang were given, 

Wliat endless melodies were poured 
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven! 

This is the story of a foolish woman, who, 
through her own folly, learned wisdom at last ; 
whose troubles — they were not very great, they 
might have made tiie happiness of some less 
eager spirit — were more than she knew how to 
bear. The lesson of life was a hard lesson to 
her. She would not learn, she revolted against 
the wholesome doctrine. And while she was 
crying out that she would not learn, and turning 
away and railing and complaining against her 
fate, days, hours, fate, went on their course. 
And they passed unmoved ; and it was she who 
gave way, she who was altered, she who was 
touched and torn by her own complaints and 
regrets. 

Elizabeth had great soft eyes and pretty yel- 
low hair, and a sweet flitting smile, which came 
out like sunlight over her face, and lit up yours 
and mine, and any other it might chance to 
fall upon. She used to smile at herself in the 
glass, as many a girl has done before her ; she 
used to dance about the room, and think : 
" Come life, come life, mine is going to be a 
happy one. Here I am awaiting, and I was 
made handsome to be admired, and to be loved, 
and to be hated by a few, and worsliipped by a 
few, and envied by all. I am handsomer than 
Lajtitia a thousand times. I am glad I have no 
money as she has, and that I shall be loved for 
myself, for my beaux yeux. One person turns 
pale when they look at him. Tra la la, tra la 
la!" and she danced along the room singing. 
There was no carpet, only a smooth polished 
floor. Three tall windows looked out into a 
busy Paris street paved with stones, over which 
carriages and cabs and hand-trucks were jolting. 
There was a clock, and artificial flowers in chi- 
na vases on the chimney, a red velvet sofa, a sort 
oi etagere with ornaments, and a great double- 
door wide open, through which you could see a 
dining-room, also bare, polished, with a round 
table and an oil-cloth cover, and a white china 
stove, and some waxwork fruit on the sideboard, 
and a maid in a white cap at work in the win- 
dow. 

Presently there came a ring at the bell. Eliza- 
beth stopped short in her dance, and the maid 



rose, put down her work, and went to open the 
door ; and then a voice, which made Elizabeth 
smile and look handsomer than ever, asked if 
Mrs. and Miss Gilmour were at home ? 

Elizabeth stood listening, with her fair head 
a little bent, while the maid said, "No, sare," 
and then Miss Gilmour flushed up quite angrily 
in the inner room, and would have run out. 
She hesitated only for a minute, and then it was 
too late ; the door was shut, and Clementine sat 
down again to her work. 

" Clementine, how dare you say I was not at 
home ?" cried Elizabeth, suddenly standing be- 
fore her. 

"Madame desired me to let no one in in her 
absence," said Clementine, primly. " I only 
obeyed my orders. There is the gentleman's 
card." 

"Sir John Dampier " was on the card, and 
then, in pencil, " I hope you will be at home iu 
Chester ^treet next week. Can I be your avant- 
courier in any way ? I cross to-night." 

Elizabeth smiled again, shrugged her shoul- 
ders, and said to herself: "Next week ; I can 
attbrd to wait better than he can, perhaps. 
Poor man ! After all, il 1/ en a lien d'atitrcs;" 
and she went to the window, and, by leaning 
out, she just caught a glimpse of the Madeleine, 
and of Sir John Dampier walking away ; and 
then presently she saw her mother o-n the oppo- 
site side of the street, passing the stall of the old 
apple-woman, turning in under the archway 
of the house. 

Elizabeth's mother was like her daughter, 
only she had black eyes and black hair, and 
where her daughter was wayward and yielding, 
the elder woman was wayward and determined. 
They did not care much for one another, these 
two. They had not lived together all their 
lives, or learned to love one another, as a mat- 
ter of course; they were too much alike, too 
much of an age: Elizabeth was eighteen, and 
her mother thirty-six. If Elizabeth looked 
twenty, the mother looked thirty, and she was 
as vain, as foolish, as fond of admiration as her 
daughter. Mrs. Gilmour did not own it to her- 
self, but she had been used to it all her life — to 
be first, to be much made of; and here was a 
little girl who had sprung up somehow, and 
learned of herself to be charming — more charm- 
ing than she had ever been in her best days ; 
and now that they had slid away, those best 
davs, the elder woman had a dull, unconscious 



234 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



discontent in hex* heart. People whom she had 
known, and who had admired lier hut a year or 
two ago, seemed to neglect her now and to pass 
her by, in order to pay a certain homage to her 
daughter's youth and brilliance : John Dampier, 
among others, whom she had known as a boy, 
when she was a young woman. Good mothers, 
tender-hearted women, brighten again and grow 
young over their children's happiness and suc- 
cess. Caroline Gilmour suddenly became old, 
somehow, when she first witnessed her daugh- 
ter's triumphs, and she felt that the wrinkles 
were growing under her wistful eyes, and that 
the color was fiiding from her cheeks, and she 
gasped a little sigh and thought : "Ah ! how I 
suffer! What is it? what can have come to 
me?" As time passed on, the widow's brows 
grew darker, her lips set ominously. One day 
she suddenly declared that she was weary of 
London and London ways, and that she should 
go abroad ; and Elizabeth, who liked every thing 
that was change, that was more life and more 
experience — she had not taken into account that 
there was any other than the experience of 
pleasure in store for her — Elizabeth clapped her 
hands and cried: "Yes, yes, mamma; I am 
quite tired of London and all this excitement. 
Let us go to Paris for the winter, and lead a 
quiet life." 

" Paris is just the place to go to for quiet," 
said Mrs. Gilmour, who was smoothing her 
shining locks in the glass, and looking intently 
into her own dark gloomful eyes. 

"The Dampiers are going to Paris," Eliza- 
beth went on ; "Lady Dampier and Sir John, 
and old Miss Dampier and Laititia. He was 
saying how he wished you would go. We could 
have such fun ! Do go, dear, pretty mamma!" 

As Elizabeth spoke, Mrs. Gilmour's dark eyes 
brightened, and suddenly her hard face melted ; 
and, still looking at herself in the glass, she 
said : " We will go if you wish it, Elly. 1 
thought you had had enough of balls." 

But the end of the Paris winter came, and 
even then Elly had not had enough ; not enough 
admiration, not enough happiness, not enough 
new dresses, not enough of herself, not enough 
time to suffice her eager, longing desires, not 
enough delights to fill up the swift-flying days. 
I can not tell you — she could not have told you 
herself — what she wanted, what perfection of 
happiness, what wonderful thing. She danced, 
she wore beautiful dresses, she flirted, she chat- 
tered nonsense and sentiment, she listened to 
music ; her pretty little head was in a whirl. 
John Dampier followed her from place to place ; 
and so, indeed, did one or two others. Though 
she was in love with them all, I believe she 
would have married this Dampier if he had ask- 
ed her, but he never did. He saw that she did 
not really care for him ; opportunity did not be- 
friend him. His mother was against it ; and 
then, her mother was there, looking at him with 
her dark, reproachful eyes — those eyes which 
had once fascinated and then repelled him, and 
tliat he mistrusted so and almost hated now. 



And this is the secret of my story ; but for this 
it would never have been written. He hated, 
and she did not hate, poor woman! It would 
have been better, a thousand times, for herself 
and for her daughter, had she done so. Ah 
me ! what cruel perversion was it, that the best 
of all good gifts should have turned to trouble, 
to jealousy, and wicked rancor; that this sacred 
power of faithful devotion, by which she might 
liave saved herself and ennobled a mean and 
earthly &\nnt, should have turned to a curse, in- 
stead of a blessing ! 

There was a placid, pretty niece of Lady 
Dampier, called Latitia who had been long 
destined for Sir John. Lastitia and Elizabeth 
iiad been at school together for a good many 
dreary years, and were very old friends. Eliza- 
beth all her life used to triumph over her friend, 
and to bewilder her with her careless, gleeful 
ways, and yet win her over to her own side, for 
she was irresistible, and she knew it. Perhaps 
it was because she knew it so well that she was 
so confident and so charming. Lietitia, although 
she was sincerely fond of her cousin, used to 
wonder that her aunt could be against such a 
wife for her son. 

" She is a sort of princess," the girl used to 
say ; "and John ought to have a beautiful wife 
for the credit of the family." 

" Your fifty thousand pounds would go a 
great deal further to promote the credit of the 
family, my dear," said old Miss Dampier, who 
was a fat, plain-spoken, kindly old lady. "I 
like the girl, though my sister-in-law does not ; 
and I hope that some day she will find a very 
good husband. I confess that I had rather it 
were not John." 

And so one day John was informed by his 
mother, who was getting alarmed, that she was 
going home, and that she could not think of 
crossing without him. And Dampier, who was 
careful, as men are mostly, and wanted to think 
about his decision, and who was anxious to do 
the very best for himself in every respect — as is 
the way with just and good and respectable 
gentlemen — was not at ail loath to obey her 
summons. 

Here was LiEtitia, who was very fond of him 
— there was no doubt of that — with a house in 
the country and money at her bankers' ; there 
was a wayward, charming, beautiful girl, who 
didn't care for him very much, who had little 
or no money, but whom he certainly cared for. 
He talked it all over dispassionately with his 
aunt— so dispassionately that the old woman got 
angry. 

"You are a model young man, John. It 
quite afiects me, and makes me forget my years 
to see the admirable way in which you young 
people conduct yourselves. You have got such 
well-regulated hearts, it's quite a marvel. You 
are quite right; Tishy has got £50,000, which 
will all go into your pocket, and respectable con- 
nections, who will come to your wedding, and 
Elly Gilmour has not a penny except what her 
mother will leave her— a mother with a bad 



THE STORY OF -ELIZABETH. 



235 



temper, and who is sure to marry again ; and 
though the girl is the prettiest young creature 
I ever set eyes on, and though you cared for 
her as you never cared for any other woman be- 
fore, men don't marry wives for such absurd 
reasons as that. You are quite right to have 
nothing to do with her ; and I respect you for 
your noble self-denial." And the old lady be- 
gan to knit away at a great long red comforter 
she had always on hand for her other nephew 
the clergyman. 

"But, my dear aunt Jean, what is it you 
want me to do?" cried John. 

" Drop one, knit two together," said the old 
lady, cliquetting her needles. 

She really wanted John to marry his cousin, 
but she was a spinster still and sentimental ; 
and she could not help being sorry for pretty 
Elizabeth ; and now she was afraid that she had 
said too much, for her nephew frowned, put his 
hands in his pockets, and walked out of the 
room. 

He walked down stairs, and out of the door 
into the Rue Royale, the street where they were 
lodging ; then he strolled across tiie Place de la 
Concorde, and in at the gates of the Tuileries, 
where the soldiers were pacing, and so along 
the broad path, to where he heard a sound of 
music, and saw a glitter of people. Turn te turn, 
bom, bom, bom, went the military music ; twit- 
tering busy little birds were chirping up in the 
branches ; buds were bursting ; colors glim- 
mering ; tinted sunshine flooding the garden, 
and music, and the people ; old gentlemen were 
reading the newspapers on the benches ; children 
were playing at hide-and-seek behind the stat- 
ues ; nurses gossiping, and nodding their white 
caps, and dandling their white babies ; and 
there on chairs, listening to the music, the 
mammas were sitting in grand bonnets and par- 
asols, working, and gossiping too, and ladies 
and gentlemen went walking up and down be- 
fore them. All the windows of the Tuileries 
were ablaze with the sun ; the terraces were be- 
ginning to gleam with crocuses and spring 
flowers. 

As John Dampier was walking along, scarce- 
ly noting all this, he heard his name softly call- 
ed, and turning round he saw two ladies sitting 
under a budding horse-chestnut tree. One of 
them he thought looked like a fresh spring flower 
herself smilin;; pleasantly, all dressed in crisp 
light gray, with a white bonnet, and a quantity 
of bright yellow crocus hair. She held out a 
little gray hand and said : — 

" Won't you come and talk to us ? Mamma 
and I are tired of listening to music. We want 
to hear somebody talk." 

And then mamma, who was !Mrs. Gilmour, 
held out a straw-colored hand, and said, "Do 
you think sensible people liave notliing better to 
do than to listen to your chatter, Elly ? Here 
is your particular friend, M. de Vaux, coming 
to us. You can talk to him." 

Elizabeth looked up quickly at her mother, 
then glanced at Dampier, then greeted M. de 



Vaux as pleasantly almost as she had greeted 
him. 

"I am afraid I can not stay now," said Sir 
John to Elizabeth. " I have several things to 
do. Do you know that we are going away im- 
mediately ?" 

Mrs. Gilmour's black eyes seemed to flash 
into his face as he spoke. He felt them, though 
he was looking at Elizabeth, and he could not 
help turning away with an impatient movement 
of dislike. 

"Going away! oh, how sorry I am," said 
Elly. " But, mamma, I forgot — you said we 
were going home, too, in a few days ; so I don't 
mind so much. You will come and say good- 
bye, won't you ?" Elizabeth went on, while M. 
de Vaux, who had been waiting to be spoken 
to, turned away rather provoked, and made some 
remark to Mrs. Gilmour. And then Elizabeth 
seeing her opportunity, and looking up, frank, 
fair, and smiling, said quickly : "To-morrow at 
three, mind — and give my love to La;titia," she 
went on, much more deliberately, " and my best 
love to Miss Dampier ! and oh, dear ! why does 
one ever have to say good-bye to one's friends ? 
Are you sure you are all really going ?" 

"Alas !" said Dampier, looking down at the 
kind young foce with strange emotion and ten- 
derness, and holding out his hand. He had not 
meant it as good-bye yet, but so Elly and her 
mother understood it. 

' ' Good-bye, Sir John ; we shall meet again 
in London," said Mrs. Gilmour. 

"Good-bye," said Elly, wistfully raising her 
sweet eyes. 

As he walked away, he carried with him a 
bright picture of the woman he loved looking 
at him kindly, happy, surrounded with sunsvliine 
and budding green leaves, smiling and holding 
out her hand ; and so he saw her in his dreams 
sometimes ; and so she would appear to him 
now and then in the course of his life ; so he 
sometimes sees her now, in spring-time, general- 
ly when the trees are coming out, and some lit- 
tle chirp of a sparrow or some little glistening 
green bud conjures up all these old bygone days 
again. 

Mrs. Gilmore did not sleep very sound all that 
night. While Elizabeth lay dreaming in her 
dark room, her motlier, with wild-ftilling black 
hair, and wrapped in a long red dressing-gown, 
was wandering restlessly up and down, or fling- 
ing herself on the bed or the sofa, and trying at 
her bedside desperately to sleep, or falling on 
her knees with clasped outstretched hands. 
Was she asking for her own happiness at the 
expense of poor EUy's ? I don't like to think 
so — it seems so cruel, so wicked, so unnatural. 
But remember, here was a passionate selfish 
woman, who for long years had had one dream, 
one idea; who knew that she loved this man 
twenty times — twenty years — more than did 
Elizabeth, who was but a little child when this 
mad fancy began. 

" She does not care for him a bit," the poor 



236 



THE STOKY-OF ELIZABETH. 



wretch said to herself over and over again. 
" He likes her, and he would marry her if— if I 
chose to give him the chance. She will he as 
happy with any body else. I could not bear 
this — it would kill me. I never suffered such 
horrible torture in all my life. He hates me. 
It is hopeless ; and I — I do not know whether 
I hate him or I love him most. How dare she 
tell him to come to-morrow, when she knew I 
would be out. She shall not see him. We will 
neither of us see him again ; never — oh ! never. 
But I shall suffer, and she will forget. Oh ! 
if I could forget!" And ttien she would fall 
down on her knees again ; and because she 
prayed, she blinded herself to her own wrong- 
doings, and thought that Heaven was on her 
side. 

And so the night went on. John Dampier 
was haunted with strange dreams, and saw 
Caroline Gilmour more than once coming and 
going in a red gown and talkiug to him, though 
he could not understand what she was saying ; 
sometimes she was in his house at Guilford ; 
sometimes in Paris ; sometimes sitting with 
Elly up in a chestnut-tree, and chattering like 
a monkey ; sometimes gliding down intermin- 
able rooms and opening door after door. He 
disliked her worse than ever when he woke in 
the morning. Is this strange ? It would have 
seemed to me stranger had it not been so. We 
are not blocks of wax and putty M'ith glass eyes, 
like the people at Madame Tussaud's ; we have 
souls, and we feel and we guess at more than 
we see round about ns, and we influence one 
another for good or for evil from the moment 
we come into the world. Let us be humbly 
thankful if the day comes for us to leave it be- 
fore, we have done any great harm to those who 
live their lives alongside with ours. And so the 
next morning Caroline asked her daughter if 
she would come with her to M. le Pasteur Tonr- 
neur's at two. " I am sure you would be the 
better for listening to a good man's exhorta- 
tion," said Mrs. Gilmour. 

*' I don't want to go, mamma. I hate ex- 
hortations," said Elizabeth, pettishly; "and 
you know how ill it made me last Tuesday. 
How can you like it — such dreary, sleepy talk? 
It gave me the most dreadful headache." 

"Poor child!" said Mrs. Gilmour, "perhaps 
the day may come when you will find out that 
a headaclie is not the most terrible calamity. 
But you understand that if you do nofchoose to 
come with me, you must stay at home. I will 
not have you going about by yourself, or with 
any chance friends — it is not respectable." 

Elly shrugged her shoulders, but resigned 
herself witli wonderful good grace. Mrs. Gil- 
mour prepared herself for her expedition : slie 
put on a black silk gown, a plain bonnet, a black 
cloak. I can not exactly tell you what change 
came over her. It was not the lady of the Tuile- 
ries the day before ; it was not the woman in 
the red dressing-gown. It was a I'espectable, 
quiet personage enough, who wqnt off primly 
with her prayer-book in her hand, and who de- 



sired Clementine on no account to let any body 
in until her return. 

"Miss Elizabeth is so little to be trusted," so 
she explained quite unnecessarily to the maid, 
" that 1 can not allow her to receive visits when 
I am from home." 

And Clementine, who was a stiff, ill-humored 
woman, pinched her lips and said, "Bien, 
madame." 

And so when Elizabeth's best chance for hap- 
piness came to the door, Clementine closed it 
again with great alacrity, and shut out the good 
fortune, and sent it away. I am sure that if 
Uampier had come in that day and seen Elly 
once more, he could not have helped speaking 
to her and making her and making himself hap- 
py in so doing. I am sure that Elly, with all 
her vanities and faults, would have made him 
a good wife, and brightened his dismal old 
house ; but I am not sure that happiness is the 
best portion after all, and that there is not some- 
thing better to be found in life than mere 
worldly prosperity. 

Dampier walked away, almost relieved, and 
yet disappointed too. "Well, they will be 
back in town in ten days," he thought, " and 
we will see then. But why the deuce did the 
girl tell me three o'clock, and then not be at 
home to see me ?" And as ill-luck would have 
it, at this moment up came Mrs. Gilmour. " I 
have just been to see you, to say good-bye," 
said Dampier. " I was very sorry to miss you 
and your daughter." 

"I have been attending a meeting at the 
house of my friend the Pasteur Tourneur," said 
Mrs. Gilmour; "but Elizabeth was at home 
— would not she see you?" She blushed 
up very red as she spoke, and so did John 
Dampier ; her face glowed with shame, and his 
with vexation. 

"No; she would not see me," cried he. 
" Good-bye, Mrs. Gilmour." 

"Good-bye," she said, and looked up with 
her black eyes ; but he was staring vacantly 
beyond her, busy with his own reflections, and 
then she felt it was good-bye forever. 

He turned down a wide street, and she crossed 
mechanically and came along the other side of 
the road, as I have said ; past the stall of the 
old apple-woman ; advancing demurely, turning 
in under the archway of the house. 

She had no time for remorse. " He does not 
care for me," was all she could think ; " he 
scorns me — he has behaved as no gentleman 
would behave." (Poor John ! — in justice to 
him I must say that this was quite an assump- 
tion on her part.) And at the same time John 
Dampier, at the other end of the street, was 
walking away in a huff, and saying to himself 
that " Elly is a little heartless flirt ; she cares 
for no one but herself. I will have no more to 
do with her. Lanitia would not have served 
me so." 

Elly met her mother at the door. " Mam- 
ma, how covhl you be so horrid and disagreea- 
ble? — why did you tell Clementine to let no 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



237 



one ia ?" She shook back her curly locks, and 
stamped her little foot, as she spoke, in her 
childish anger. 

" You should not give people appointments 
when I am out of the way," said Mrs. Gilmour, 
primly. "Why did you not come with me? 
Dear M. Tourneur's exposition was quite beau- 
tiful." 

"I hate Monsieur Tourneur!" cried Eliza- 
beth ; " and I should not do such things if you 
were kind, mamma, and liked mo to amuse my- 
self and to be happy ; but you sit there, prim 
and frowning, and thinking every thing wrong 
that is harmless ; and you spoil all my pleas- 
ure ; and it is a shame — and a siiame — and 
you will make me hate you too ;" and she ran 
into her own room, banged the door, and lock- 
ed it. 

I suppose it was by way of compensation to 
Elly that Mrs. Gilmour sat down and wrote a 
little note, asking Monsieur de Vaux to tea that 
evening to meet M. le Pasteur Tourneur and his 
son. 

Elizabeth sat sulking in her room all the 
afternoon, the door shut ; the hum of a busy 
city came in at her open window ; then 
the glass panes blazed with light, and she re- 
membered how the windows of the Tnileries 
had shone at that time the day before, and she 
thouglit how kind and how handsome Dampier 
looked, as he came walking along, and how he 
was worth ten Messieurs de Vaux and twenty 
foolish boys like Anthony Tourneur. The 
dusky shadows came creeping around the room, 
dimming a pretty picture. 

It was a eommoniilace little tableau de genre 
enough — that of a girl sitting at a window, with 
clasped liands, dreaming dreams more or less 
silly, with the light falling on her hair, and on 
the folds of her dress, and on the blazing petals 
of the flowers on the balcony outside, and then 
overhead a quivering green summer sky. But 
it is a little picture that nature is never tired of 
reproducing ; and, besides nature, every year, in 
the Royal Academy, 1 see half a dozen such 
representations. 

In a quiet, unconscious sort of way, Elly. 
made up her mind, tliis summer afternoon — 
made up her mind, knowing not that perhaps it 
was too late, that the future' she was accepting, 
half glad, half reluctant, was, maybe, already 
hers no more, to take or to leave. Only a lit- 
tle stream, apparently easy to cross, lay, as yet, 
between her and the figure slie seemed to see 
advancing towards her. She did not know that 
every day this little stream would widen and 
widen, until in time it would be a gieat ocean 
lying between them. Ah! take care, my poor 
Elizabeth, that you don't tumble into the wa- 
ters, and go sinking down, down, down, while 
tiie waves close over your curly yellow locks. 

"Will you come to dinner, mademoiselle?" 
said Clementine, rapping at the door with the 
finger of fate Mhich had shut out Sir John 
Dampier only a few hours ago. 
" Go away !" cries Elizabeth. 



" Elizabetli ! dinner is ready," says her 
mother, fiom outside, with unusual gentleness. 

"I don't want any dinner," says Elly; and 
then feels very sorry and very hungry the min- 
ute she has spoken. The door was locked, but 
she had forgotten the window, and Mrs. Gil- 
mour, in a minute, came along the balcony, 
with her silk dress rustling against the iron 
bars. 

"You silly girl! come and eat," said her 
mother, still strangely kind and forbearing. 
"The Vicomte de Vaux is coming to tea, and 
Monsieur Tourneur and Anthony ; you must 
come and have your dinner, and then let Clem- 
entine dress you ; you will catch cold if you sit 
here any longer ;" and she took the girl's hand 
gently and led her away. 

For the first time in her life, Elizabeth al- 
most felt as if she really loved her mother ; 
and, touched by her kindness, and with a sud- 
den impulse, and melting, and blushing, and all 
ashamed of herself, she said, almost before she 
knew what she had spoken : " Mamma, I am 
very silly, and I've behaved very badly, but I 
did so want to see him again." 

Mrs. Gilmour just dropped the girl's hand. 
" Nonsense, Elizabeth ; your head is full of sil- 
ly school-girl notions. I wish I had had you 
brought up at home instead of at Mrs. Straight- 
board's." 

" I wish you had, mamma," said Elly, speak- 
ing coldly and quietly; "Lretitia and I were 
both very miserable there." And then she sat 
down at the round table to break bread with 
her mother, hurt, wounded, and angry. Her 
face looked hard and stern, like Mrs. Gil- 
mour's ; her bread choked her ; she drank a 
glass of water, and it tasted bitter, somehow. 
Was Caroline more hap]>y ? did she eat with 
be'tter appetite? She ate more, she looked 
much as usual, she talked a good deal. Clem- 
entine was secretly thinking what a good-for- 
nothing, ill-tempered girl mademoiselle was ; 
what a good woman, what a good mother, was 
madame. Clementine revenged some of ma- 
dame's wrongs upon Elizabeth, by pulling her 
hair after dinner, as she was plaiting and pin- 
ning it up. Elly lost her temper, and violent- 
ly pushed Clementine away, and gave her 
warning to leave. 

Clementine, furious, and knowing that some 
of the company had already arrived, rushed into 
the drawing-room with her wrongs. " JNlade- 
moiselle m'a pousse'e, madame ; mademoiselle 
m'a dit des injures; mademoiselle m'a conge'- 
die'e — " But in the middle of her harangue, 
the door flew open, and Elizabeth, looking like 
an empress, bright cheeks flushed, eyes spark- 
ling, hair crisply curling, and all dressed in 
shining pink silk, stood before them. 



238 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



CHAPTER ir. 



But for his funeral train which tlie bridegroom sees in the 

distance, 
Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage 

procession ? 
But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in 

that service ? 
But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous 

contract ? 

I don't think they. had ever seen any body 
like her before, those two MM. Tourneurs, who 
had just arrived ; they both rose, a little man 
and a tall one, father and son ; and besides 
these gentlemen, there was an old lady in a 
poke-bonnet sitting there too, who opened her 
shrewd eyes and held out her hand. Clemen- 
tine was crushed, eclipsed, forgotten. Eliza- 
beth advanced, tall, slim, stately, with wide- 
spread petticoats ; but she began to blush very 
much when she saw Miss Dampier. Eor a 
few minutes there was a little confusion of 
greeting, and voices, and chairs moved about, 
and then : — 

"I came to say good-bye to you," said the 
old lady, " in case we should not meet again. 
I am going to Scotland in a month ortwo^per- 
liaps I may be gone by the time you get back 
to town." 

"Oh no, no! I hope not," said Elizabeth. 
She was very much excited, the tears almost 
came into her eyes. 

" We shall most likely follow you in a week 
or ten days," said Mrs. Gilmour, with a sort of 
laugh; "there is no necessity for any senti- 
mental leave-taking." 

"Does that woman mean what she says?" 
thought the old lady, looking at her ; and then 
turning to Elizabeth again, she continued : 
"There is no knowing what may happen to 
any one of us, my dear. There is no harm in 
saying good-bye, is there ? Have you any mes- 
sage for Lajtitia or Catherine?" 

" Give Lajtitia my very best love," saidElly, 
grateful for the old lady's kindness ; " and — and 
I was very, very sorry that I could not see Sir 
John when he came to-day so good-naturedly." 

"He must come and see you in London," 
said Miss Dampier, very kindly still. (She 
was thinking. " She does care for him, poor 
child.") 

"Oh yes! in London," repeated Mrs. Gil- 
mour; so that Elly looked quite pleased, and 
Miss Dampier again said to herself: "She is 
decidedly not coming to London. What can 
she mean ? Can there be any thing with that 
Frenchman, De Vaux? Impossible!" And 
then she got up, and said aloud : "Well, good- 
bye. I have all my old gowns to pack up, and 
my knitting, Elly. Write to me, child, some- 
times!" 

" Oh yes, yes !" cried Elizabeth, flinging her 
arms round the old lady's neck, kissing her, and 
whispering, " Good-bye, dear, dear Miss Dam- 
pier." 

At the door of the apartment Clementine was 
waiting, hoping for a possible five-franc jjiece. 
" Bon soir, madame," said she. 



" Oh indeed," said Miss Dampier, staring at 
her, and she passed out with a sort of sniff, and 
then she walked home quietly through the dark 
back-streets, only, as she went along, she said to 
herself evei-y now and then, she hardly knew 
why, " Poor Elly — poor child !" 

Meanwhile, M. Tourneur was taking Eliza- 
beth gently to task. Elizabeth was pouting her 
red lips and sulking, and looking at him defi- 
antly from under her drooped eyelids ; and all 
the time Anthony Tourneur sat admiring her, 
with his eyes wide open, and his great mouth 
open too. He was a big young man, with im- 
mense hands and feet, without any manners to 
speak of, and with thick hair growing violently 
upon end. There was a certain distinction 
about his fother which he had not inherited. 
Young Frenchmen of this class are often singu- 
larly rough and unpolished in their early youth ; 
they tone down with time, however, as they see 
more of men and of women. Anthony had nev- 
er known much of either till now ; for his young 
companions at the Protestant college were rough 
cubs like himself; and as for women his moth- 
er was dead (she had been an Englishwoman, 
and died when he was ten years old), and old 
Fran^oise, the cuismiere, at home, was almost the 
only woman he knew. His father was more 
used to the world and its ways : he fancied he 
scorned them all, and yet the pomps and vani- 
ties and the pride of life had a horrible attrac- 
tion for this quiet pasteur. He was humble 
and ambitious: he was tender-hearted, and 
hard-headed, and narrow-minded. Though 
stern to himself, he was weak to others, and yet 
feebly resolute when he met with opposition. 
He was not a great man ; his qualities neutral- 
ized one another, but he had a great reputation. 
The Oratoire was crowded on the days when he 
was expected to preach, his classes were throng- 
ed, his pamphlets went through three or four 
editions. Popularity delighted him. His man- 
ner had a great charm, his voice was sweet, his 
words well chosen ; his head was a fine melan- 
choly head, his dark eyes flashed when he was 
excited. Women especially admired and re- 
spected Stephen Tourneur. 

Mrs. Gilmour was like another person when 
she was in his presence. Look at her to-night, 
with her smooth black hair, and her gray silk 
gown, and her white hands busied pouring out 
his tea. See how slie is appealing to him, def- 
erentially listening to his talk. I can not write 
his talk down here. Certain allusions can have 
no place in a little story like this one, and yet 
they were allusions so frequently in his thoughts 
and in his mouth that it was almost uncon- 
sciously that he used them. He and his breth- 
ren like him have learned to look at this life 
from a loftier point of view than Elly Gilmour 
and worldlings like her, who feel that to-day 
they are in the world and of it, not of their own 
will, indeed — though they are glad that they are 
here — but waiting a further dispensation. 'Tour- 
neur, and those like him, look at this life only 
in comparison with tlie next, as though they had 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



239 



already passed beyond, and had but little con- [ 
cern with the things of to-day. They speak 
chiefly of sacred subjects; they have put aside 
our common talk, and thought, and career. 
They have put them away, and yet tliey are 
men and women, after all. And Stephen Tour- 
neur, among the rest, was a soft-hearted man. 
To-night, as indeed often before, he was full of 
sympathy for the poor mother who had so often 
spoken of lier grief and care for her daughter, 
of her loneliness. He understood her need ; 
her want of an adviser, of a friend whom she 
could reverence and defer to. How meekly she 
listened to his words, with what kindling inter- 
est she heard him speak of what was in his heart 
always, with what gentleness she attended to his 
wants. How womanly she was,. how much more 
])leasant than any of the English, Scotch, Irish 
old maids who were in the habit of coming to 
consult him in their various needs and troubles ! 
He had never known her so tender, so gentle, as 
to-night. Even Elly, sulking and beating the 
tattoo with her satin shoes, thought that her 
mother's manner was very strange. How could 
any one of the people sitting round that little tea- 
table guess at the passion of hopelessness, of rage, 
of desjiair, of envy, that was gnawing at the eld- 
er woman's heart ? at the mad, desperate deter- 
mination she was making ? And yet every now 
and then she said odd, imploring things — she 
seemed to be crying wildly for sympathy — she 
spoke of other people's troubles with a startling 
earnestness. 

De Vaux, who arrived about nine o'clock, and 
asked for a ■sovpgon de the, and put in six lumps 
of sugar, and so managed to swallow the mixt- 
ure, went away at ten, without one idea of the 
tragedy with which he had been spending his 
evening — a tragical farce, a comedy — I know 
not what to call it. 

Elly was full of her own fancies ; Monsieur 
Tourneur was making up his mind ; Anthony's 
whole head was rustling with pink silk, or diz- 
zy with those downcast, bright, bewildering blue 
eyes of Elly's, and he sat stupidly counting the 
little bows on her skirt, or watching the glitter 
of the rings on her finger, and wisiiing that she 
would not look so cross when he spoke to her. 
She had brightened up considerably while De 
Vaux was there ; but now, in truth, her mind 
was travelling away, and she was picturing to 
herself the Danipiers at their tea-table — Tishy, 
pale and listless, over her feeble cups ; Lady 
Dumpier, with her fair hair and her hook nose, 
lying on the sofa ; and John in the arm-chair 
by the fire, cutting dry jokes at his aunt. Elly's 
spirits had travelled away like a ghost, and it 
was only her body that was left sitting in the 
little gaudy drawing-room ; and though she did 
not know it, there was another ghost flitting 
alongside with hers. Strangely enough the 
people of whom she was thinking were assembled 
together very much as she imagined them to be. 
Did they guess at the two pale phantoms that 
were hovering about them ? Somehow or oth- 
er, Miss Danipier, over her knitting, was still 



piuttering, "Poor child!" to the click of her 
needles; and John Dampier was haunted by 
the woman in red, and by a certain look in Elly's 
eyes, which he had seen yesterday when he found 
her under the tree. 

Meanwhile, at the other side of Paris, the 
other little company was assembled round the 
fire : and Mrs. Gilmour, with her two hands 
folded tightly together, was looking at jM. Tour- 
neur with her great soft eyes, and saying : 
" The woman was never yet born who could 
stand alone, who did not look for some earthly 
counsellor and friend to point out the road to 
better things— to help her along the narrow 
thorny way. Wounded, and bruised, and weary, 
it is hard, hard for us to follow our lonely 
path." She spoke with a pathetic passion, so 
that Elizabeth could not think what had come 
to her. Mrs. Gilmour was generally quite ca- 
pable of standing, and going, and coming, with- 
out any assistance whatever. In her father's 
time, Elly could remember that there was not 
the slightest need for his interference in any of 
their arrangements. But the mother was evi- 
dently in earnest to-night, and the daughter 
quite bewildered. Later in the evening, after 
Monsieur de Vaux was gone, Mrs. Gilmour 
got up from her chair and flung open the win- 
dow of the balcony. All the stars of heaven 
shone splendidly over the city. A great, silent, 
wonderful night had gathered round about them 
unawares ; a great calm had come after the 
noise and business of the careful day. Caro- 
line Gilmour stepped out with a gasping sigh, 
and stood looking upward ; they could see her 
gray figure dimly against the darkness. Mon- 
sieur Tourneur remained sitting by the fire, with 
his eyes cast down and his hands folded. 
Presently he too rose and walked slowly across 
the room, and stepped out upon the balcony ; 
and Elizabeth and Anthony remained behind, 
staring vacantly at one another. Elizabeth 
was yawning and wondering when they would 
go. 

"You are sleepy, miss," said young Tour- 
neur, in his French-English. 

Elly yawned in a very unmistakable lan- 
guage, and showed all her even white teeth. 
"I always get sleepy when I have been cross, 
Mr. Anthony. I have been cross ever since 
three o'clock to-day, and now it is long past ten, 
and time for us all to go to bed : don't you think 
so?" 

" I am waiting for my father," said the young 
man. " He watches late at night, but we are 
all sent oft' at ten." 

" ' We !' — you and old Fran^oise ?" 

" I and the young Christians who live in our 
house, and study with my father and read un- 
der his direction. There are five, all from the 
south, who are, like me, preparing to be min- 
isters of the gospel." 

Another great wide yawn from E^3^ 

"Do you think your .father will stop much 
longer ? if so, I shall go to bed. Oh dear me !" 
and with a sigh she let her head fall back upon 



240 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



the soft-cushioned chair, and then, somehow, 
her eyes shut very softly, and her hands fell 
loosely, and a little quiet dream came, some- 
thing of a garden and peace, and green trees, 
and Miss Dampier knitting in the sunshine. 
Click, click, click, she heard the needles, but 
it was only the clock ticking on the mantel- 
piece. Anthony was almost afraid to breathe, 
for fear he should wake her. It seemed to him 
very strange to be sitting by this smouldering 
fire, with the stars burning outside, while 
through the open window the voices of the two 
people talking on the balcony came to him in a 
low murmuring sound. And there opposite him 
Elly asleep, breathing so softly and looking so 
wonderfully pretty in her slumbers. Do you 
not know the peculiar, peaceful feeling which 
comes to any one sitting alone by a sleeping 
])erson ? I can not tell which of the two was 
for a few minutes the most tranquil and hap- 

py- 

Elly was still dreaming her quiet, peaceful 
dreams, still sitting with Miss Dampier in her 
gai'den, under a chestnut-tree, with Dampier 
coming towards them, when suddenly some 
voice whispered " Elizabeth " in her ear, and 
she awoke with a start of chill siirprise. It was 
not Anthony who had called her, it was only 
fancy ; but as she woke he said : 

" Ah ! I was just going to wake you." 

What had come to him ? He seemed to have 
awakened too — to have come to himself sud- 
denly. One word which had reached him — he 
had very big sharp ears — one word distinctly 
uttered amid the confused murmur on the bal- 
cony, brought another word of old Fran^oise's 
to his mind. And then in a minute — he could 
not tell how it was — it was all clear to him. 
Already he was beginning to learn the ways of 
the world. Elly saw him blush up, saw his 
eyes light with intelligence, and his ears grow 
very red ; and then he sat up straight in his 
chair, and looked at her in a quick, uncertain 
sort of way. 

"You would not allow it," said he, sudden- 
ly, staring at her fixedly with his great flashing 
eyes. ' ' I never thought of such a thing till this 
minute. Who ever would ?" 

" Thought of what ? What are you talking 
about?" said Elly, startled. 

"Ah! that is it." And then he tui-ned his 
head impatiently : " How stupid you must have 
been. What can have put such a thing into 
his head and hers. Ah ! it is so strange, I don't 
know what to think or to say ;" and he sank 
back in his chair. But, somehow or other, the 
idea which had occurred to him was not nearly 
so disagreeable as he would have expected it to 
be. The notion of some other companionship 
besides that of the five young men from the 
south, instead of shocking him, filled him with 
a vague, delightful excitement. "Ah ! then she 
would comcand live with us in that pink dress," 
he thought. And meanwhile Elizabeth turned 
very pale, and she too began dimly to see what 
he was thinking of, only she could not be quite 



sure. "Is it that I am to marry liim?" she 
thought ; " they can not be plotting that." 

"What is it, M. Anthony?" said she, very 
fierce. " Is it — they do not think that I would 
ever — ever dream or think of marrying you ?" 
She was quite pale now, and hei- eyes were glow- 
ing. 

Anthony shook his head again. "I know 
that," said he ; "it is not you or me." 

"What do you dare to imjdy?" she cried, 
more and more fiercely. "You can't mean — 
you would never endure, never suffer that — 
that — " The words failed on her lips. 

"I should like to have you for a sister. Miss 
Elizabeth," said he, looking down ; " it is so 
triste at home." 

Elly half started from her chair, put up her 
white hands, scarce knowing what she did, and 
then suddenly cried out, "Mother! mother!" 
in a loud, shrill, thrilling voice, which brought 
Mrs. Gilmour back into the room. And Mon- 
sieur Tourneur came too. Not one of them 
spoke for a minute. Elizabeth's horror-stricken 
face frightened the pasteur, who felt as if he 
was in a dream, who had let himself drift along 
with the feeling of the moment, who did not 
know even now if he had done right or wrong, 
if he had been carried away by mere earthly im- 
pulse and regard for his own happiness, or if he 
had been led and directed to a worthy help- 
meet, to a Christian companion, to one who had 
the means and the power to help him in his la- 
bors. Ah, surely, surely he had done well, he 
thought for himself, and for those who depend- 
ed on him. It was not without a certain dig- 
nity at last, and nobleness of manner, that he 
took Mrs. Gilmour's liand, and said : 

"You called your mother just now, Eliza- 
beth : here she is. Dear woman, she has con- 
sented to be my best earthly friend and compan- 
ion, to share my hard labors; to share a life 
poor and arduous, and full of care, and despised 
perhaps by the world ; but rich in eternal hope, 
blessed by prayer, and consecrated by a Chris- 
tian's faith." He was a little man, but he 
seemed to grow tall as he spoke. His eyes 
kindled, his face lightened with enthusiasm. 
Elizabeth could not help seeing this, even while 
she stood shivering with indignation and sick 
at heart. As for Anthony, he got up, and 
came to his father and took both his hands, and 
then suddenly flung his arms around his neck. 
Elizabeth found words at last : 

" You can suffer this ?" she said to Anthony. 
" You have no feelings, then, of decency, of fit- 
ness, of memory for the dead. You, mamma, 
can degrade yourself by a second marriage? 
1 Oh ! for shame, for shame !" and she burst into 
jiassionate teai-s, and flung herself down on a 
\ chair. IMonsieur Tourneur was not used to be 
thwarted, to be reproved ; he got very pale, he 
pushed Anthony gently aside, and went up to 
her. "Elizabeth,-' said he, "is this the con- 
duct of a devoted daughter ; arc "these the 
words of good-will and of peace, with which 
your mother should be greeted by her children ? 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



211 



I had hoped that you wowld look upon me as a 
friend. If you could see my heart, you would 
know how ready I am ; how gladly I would love 
you as my own child," and he held out his hand. 
EUy Gilmour dashed it away. 

" Go," she said ; "you have made me wretch- 
ed ; / hate your life, and your ways, and your 
sermons, and we shall all be miserable, every 
one of us ; I know well enough it is for her 
money you marry her. Oh, go away out of my 
sight." Tourneur had felt doubts. Elizabeth's 
taunts and opposition reassured him and strength- 
ened him in his purpose. This is only human 
nature, as well as pasteur nature in particular. 
If every thing had gone smoothly, very likely 
he would have found out a snare of the Devil 
in it, and broken it off, not caring what grief 
and suilering he caused to himself in so doing. 
Now that the girl's words brought a flush into 
his pale face and made him to wince with pain, 
he felt justified, nay, impelled to go on — to be 
firm. And now he stood up like a gentleman, 
and spoke : — 

" And if I want your mother's money, is it 
hers, is it mine, was it given to me or to her to 
spend for our own use ? Was it not lent, will 
not an account be demanded hereafter? Un- 
happy child ! where have you found already 
such sordid thoughts, such unworthy suspicions? 
Where is your Christian charity ?" 

"I never made any pretense of having any," 
cried Elizabeth, stamping her foot and tossing 
her fair mane. "You talk and talk about it 
and about the will of Heaven, and suit your- 
selves, and break my heart, and look up quite 
scandalized, and forgive me for my wickedness. 
But I had rather be as wicked as I am than as 
good as you." 

"Allons, taisez-vous, Mademoiselle Eliza- 
beth!" said Antiiony, who had taken his part; 
" or my father will not marry your mother, and 
then you will be in the wrong, and have made 
every body unhappy. It is very, very sad and 
melancholy in our house ; be kind and come 
and make us happy. If I am not angry, why 
should you mind ? but see here, I will not give 
my consent unless you do, and I know my fa- 
ther will do nothing against my wishes and 
yours." 

Poor Elizabeth looked up, and then she saw 
that her mother was crying too ; Caroline had 
had a hai'd day's work. No wonder she was 
fairly harassed and worn out. Elizabeth her- 
self began to be as bewildered, as puzzled as the 
rest. She put her hand wearily to her head. 
She did not feel angry any more, but very tired 
and sad. " How can I say I think it right 
when I think it wrong? It is not me you 
want to marry, M. Tourneur; mamma is old 
enough to decide. What need you care for 
what a silly girl like me says and thinks ? 
Good-night, mamma ; lam tired and must go to 
bed. Good-night, Monsieur Tourneur. Good- 
night, M. Anthony. Oh dear!" sighed Eliza- 
beth, as she went out of the room with her head 
hanging, and with pale cheeks and dim eves. 

Q 



You could hardly have believed it was the tri- 
umphant young beauty of an hour ago. But it 
had always been so with this impetuous, sensi- 
tive Elizabeth ; she suffered, as she enjoyed, 
more keenly than any body else I ever knew ; 
she put her whole heart into her life without any 
reserve, and then, when fiiilure and disappoint- 
ment came, she had no more heart left to en- 
dure with. 

I am sure it was with a humble spirit that 
Tounieur that night, before he left, implored a 
benediction on himself and on those who were 
about to belong to him. He went away at 
eleven o'clock with Anthony, walking home 
through the dark, long streets to his house, 
which was near one of the gates of the city. 
And Caroline sat till the candles went out, till 
the fire had smouldered away, till the chill 
night-breezes swept round the room, and then 
went stupefied to bed, saying to herself: "Now 
he will learn that others do not despise me, and 
I — I will lead a good life." 



CHAPTER III. 

Le temps emporte sur son aile 
Et le pi-intemps et I'hlrondelle, 
Et la vie et les jours perdus ; 
Tout s'en va comme la fura6e, 
L'espijrance et la renommee, 
Et nioi qui vous ai tant aimoe, 
Et toi qui ne t'en souviens plusl 

A LOW, one-Storied house standing opposite 
a hospital, built on a hilly street, ^\ith a great 
white porte-cochere closed and barred, and then 
a garden wall : nine or ten windows only a foot 
from the ground, all blinded and shuttered in a 
row ; a brass plate on the door, with Stephen 
Tourneur engraved thereon, and grass and chick- 
weed growing between the stones and against 
the white walls of the house. Passing under 
the archway, you come into a grass-grown court- 
yard ; through an iron grating you see a little 
desolate garden with wallflowers and stocks and 
tall yellow weeds all flowering together, and 
fruit-trees running wild against the wall. On 
one side there arc some empty stables, with 
chickens pecketting in the sun. The house is 
built in two long low wings ; it has a dreary moat- 
ed-grange sort of look; and see, standing at one 
of the upper windows, is not that Elizabeth look- 
ing out ? An old woman in a blue gown and a 
whitf coif is pumping water at the pump, some 
miserable canaries are piping shrilly out of 
green cages, the old woman clacks away with 
her sabots echoing over the stones, the canaries 
cease their piping, and then nobody else comes. 
There are two or three tall poplar-trees grow- 
ing along the wall, which .shiver plaintively ; a 
few clouds drift by, and a very distant faint 
sound of military music comes borne on the 
wind. 

"Ah, how dull it is to be here ! Ah ! how I 
hate it, how I hate them all ! " Elizabeth is say- 
ing to herself: "There is some music, all the 
Champs Elysees are crowded with people, the 



242 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



soldiers are marching along with glistening 
bayonets and flags flying. Not one of them 
thinks that in a dismal lioiise not very far away 
there is any body so unhappy as I am. This 
day year — it breaks my heart to think of it — I 
was nineteen ; to-day I am twenty, and I feel a 
hundred. Oh, what a sin and shame it is to 
condemn me to this hateful life ! Oh, what 
wicked people these good peo))le are! Oh, 
how dull ! Oh, how stupid ! Oh, how prosy ! 
Oh, how I wish I was dead, and they were dead, 
and it was all over!" 

How many weary yawns, I wonder, had poor 
Elizabeth yawned since that first night when 
M. Tourneur came to tea ? With what distaste 
she set herself to live her new life I can not at- 
tempt to tell you. It bored her, and wearied 
and displeased her, and she made no secret of 
her displeasure, you may be certain. But what 
annoyed her most of all, what seemed to her so 
inconceivable that she could never understand 
or credit it, was the extraordinary change which 
had come over her mother. Mme. Tourneur 
was like Mrs. Gilmour in many things, but so 
dift'erent in others that EUy could hardly believe 
her to be the same woman. The secret of it all 
was a love of power and admiration, purchased 
no matter at what sacrifice, which had always 
been the hidden motive of Caroline's life. Now 
she found that by dressing in black, by looking 
stiff, by attending endless charitable meetings, 
prayer-meetings, religious meetings, by influ- 
encing M. Tourneur, who was himself a man 
in authority, she could eat of the food her soul 
longed for. "There was a man once who did 
not care for me, he despised me," she used to 
think sometimes ; "he liked that silly child of 
mine better; he shall hear of me one day." 

Lady Danipier was a very strong partisan of 
the French Protestant Church. Mme. Tour- 
neur used to hope that she would come to Paris 
again and carry home witii her the fame of her 
virtues, and her influence, and her conversion ; 
and in the mean while the weary round of poor 
Elly's daily existence went on. To-day, for two 
lonesome hours, she stood leaning at that win- 
dow with the refrain of tiie distant music echo- 
ing in her ears long after it had died away. It 
was like the remembrance of the past pleasures 
of her short life. Such a longing for sympathy, 
for congenial spirits, for the pleasures slie loved 
so dearly, came over her, that the great hot tears 
welled into her ej'es, and tlie bitterest tears are 
those which do wot fall. The gate-bell rang at 
last, and Clementine walked across the yard to 
unbolt, to unbar, and to let in Monsieur Tour- 
neur, with books under his arm, and a big stick. 
Then the bell rang again, and Madame Tour- 
neur followed, dressed in prim scant clothes, 
accompanied by another person even primmer 
and scantier than herself; this was a widowed 
step-sister of M. Tourneur's, who, unluckily, had 
no home of her own, so the good man received 
her and her children into his. Lastly, Eliza- 
beth, from her window, saw Antliony arrive with 
four of the young Protestants, all swinging their 



legs and arms. (The fifth was detained at home 
with a bad swelled face.) All the others were 
now coming back to dinner, after attending a 
class at the Pasteur Boulot's. They clattered 
past the door of Elly's room — a bare little cham- 
ber, with one white curtain she had nailed up 
herself, and a straight bed and a chair. A clock 
struck five. A melancholy bell presently sound- 
ed through the house, and a strong smell of 
cabbage came in at the open window. Elly 
looked in the glass ; her rough hair was all 
standing on end curling, her hands were streaked 
with chalk and brick from the window, her 
washed-out blue cotton gown was creased and 
tumbled. What did it matter? she shook her 
head, as she had a way of doing, and went down 
stairs as she was. On the way she met two un- 
tidy-looking little girls, and then clatter, clatter, 
along the uncarpeted passage, came the great 
big-nailed boots of the pupils ; and then at the 
dining-room door there was Clementine in a yel- 
low gown — much smarter and trimmer than 
Elizabeth's blue cotton — carrying a great long 
loaf of sour bread. 

Madame Tourneur was already at her post, 
standing at the head of the table, ladling out 
the cabbage-soup with the pieces of bread float- 
ing in every plate. M. Tourneur was eating 
his dinner quickly ; he had to examine a class 
for confirmation at six, and there was a prayer- 
meeting at seven. The other prim lady sat op- 
posite to him with her portion before her. There 
was a small table-cloth, streaked with blue, and 
not over clean ; hunches of bread by every plate, 
and iron knives and forks. Each person said 
grace to himself as he came and took his place. 
Only Elizabeth flung herself down in a chair, 
looked at the soup, made a face, and sent it away 
untasted. 

"Elizabeth, ma fille, vous ne mangez pas," 
said M. Tourneur, kindly. 

" I can't swallow it!" said Elizabeth. 

" When there are so many poor people starv- 
ing in the streets, you do not, I suppose, expect 
us to sympathize with such pampered fancies?" 
said the prim lady. 

Although the sisters-in-law were apparently 
very good friends, there was a sort of race of 
virtue always being run between them, and just 
now Elly's shortcomings were a thorn in her 
mother's side, so skillfully were they wielded by 
Mrs. Jacob. Lou-Lou and Tou-Tou, otherwise 
Louise and Thc'rese, her daughters, were such 
good, stupid, obedient, uninteresting little girls, 
that there was really not a word to say against 
them in retort ; and all that Elly's mother could 
do, was to be even more severe, more uncom- 
promising than Madame Jacob herself. And 
now ^e said : — 

" Nonsense, Elizabeth ; you must really eat 
your dinner. Clementine, bring back MissEliza- 
beth's plate." 

M. Tourneur looked up — he thought the soup 
very good himself, but he could not bear to sec 
any body distressed. " Go and fetch the bou- 
illic quickly, Clementine. Why should Eliza- 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



243 



beth take what she does not like? Rose," said 
he to his sister, "do you remember how our 
poor mother used to make us breakfiist o^— por- 
ridge, I think she called it — and what a bad taste 
it had, and how we used to cry?" 

"We never ungratefully objected to good 
soup," said Rose. "I make a point of never 
giving in to Lou-Lou and Tou-Tou when they 
have their fancies. I care more for the welfare 
of their souls than for pampering their bodies." 

"And I only care for my body," Elly cried. 
"Mamma, I like porridge, will you have some 
for me?" 

"Ah! hush! hush! Elizabeth. You do not 
think what you say, my poor child," said Tour- 
neur. " What is mere eating and drinking, 
what is food, what is raiment, but dust and rot- 
tenness? You only care for your body! — for 
that mass of corruption. Ah, do not say such 
things, even in jest. Remember that for every 
idle word — " 

" And is there to be no account for spiteful 
words ?" interrupted Elizabeth, looking at Mrs. 
Jacob. 

Monsieur Tourneur put down the glass of 
wine he was raising to his lips, and with sad, 
reproachful glances, looked at the unruly step- 
daughter. Madame Jacob, shaking with indig- 
nation, cast her eyes up and opened her mouth, 
and Elizabeth began to pout her red lips. One 
minute and the storm would have burst, when 
Anthony upset a jug of water at his elbow, and 
the stream trickled down and down the table- 
cloth. These troubled waters restored peace for 
the moment. Poor Tourneur was able to finish 
his meal, in a puddle truly, but also in^ilence. 
Jlrs. Jacob, who had received a large portion 
of the water in her lap, retired to change her 
dress, the young Christians sniggered over their 
plates, and Anthony went on eating his dinner. 

I don't offer any excuse for Elizabeth. She 
was worried, and vexed, and tried beyond her 
powers of endurance, and she grew more way- 
ward, more provoking every day. It is very 
easy to be good-natured, good-tempered, thank- 
ful and happy, when you are in the country you 
love, among your own peo]ile, living your own 
life. But if you are suddenly transplanted, 
made to live some one else's life, expected to 
see with another man's eyes, to forget your own 
identity almost, all that happens is, that you do 
not do as you were expected. Sometimes it is 
a sheer impossibility. What is that rare proverb 
about the shoe ? Cinderella slipped it on in an 
instant ; but you know her poor sisters cut oiT 
their toes and heels, and could not screw their 
feet in, though they tried ever so. Well, they 
did their best ; but Elly did not try at all, and 
that is why she was to blame. She was a spoiled 
child, both by good and ill fortune. Sometimes, 
when she sat sulking, her mother used to look 
wondering at her with her black eyes, without 
saying a word. Did it ever occur to her that 
this was her work ? that Elizabeth might have 
been happy now, honored, prosperous, well lovod, 
but for a little lie which had been told — but for 



a little barrier which had been thrown, one sum- 
mer's day, between her and John Dampier? 
Caroline had long ceased to feel remorse — she 
used to say to herself that it would be much 
better for Elizabeth to marry Anthony, she 
would make any body else miserable with her 
wayward temper. Anthony was so obtuse that 
Elizabeth's fancies would not try him in the 
least. Mi"s. Gilmour chose to term obtuseness 
a certain chivalrous devotion which the young 
man felt for her daughter. She thouglit him 
dull and slow, and so he was ; but at the same 
time tiiere were gleams of shrewdness which 
came quite unexpectedly, you knew not whence ; 
there was a certain reticence and good sense of 
which people had no idea. Anthony knew much 
more about her and about his father than they 
knew about him. Every day he was learning 
to read the world. Elly had taught him a great 
deal, and he in return was her friend always. 

Elly went out into the court-yard after dinner, 
and Anthony followed her — one little cousin had 
hold of each of his hands. If the little girls 
had not been little French Protestant girls, 
Elizabeth would have been very fond of them, 
for she loved children ; but when they ran up to 
her, she motioned them away impatiently, and 
Anthony told them to go and run round the gar- 
den. Elizabeth was sitting on a tub which had 
been overturned, and resting her pretty dishev- 
elled head wearily against the wall. Anthony 
looked at her for a minute. 

" Why do you never wear nice dresses now," 
said he at last, " but this ugly old one always?" 

"Is it not all vanity and corruption ?" said 
Elizabeth, with a sneer ; " how can you ask such 
a question ? Every thing that is pretty is van- 
ity. Your aunt and my mother only like ugly 
things. They would like to put out mj- eyes be- 
cause they don't squint ; to cut off my hair be- 
cause it is pretty." 

' ' Your hair ! It is not at all pretty like that," 
said Anthony ; " it is all rough, like mine." 

Elizabeth laughed and blushed very sweetly. 
"What is the use, who cares?" 

"There are a good many people coming to- 
night," said Anthony. " It is our turn to receive 
the prayer-meeting. Why should you not smooth 
your curls and change your dress?" 

" And do you remember what happened once, 
when I did dress, and make mj'self look nice?" 
said Elizabeth, flashing up, and then beginning 
to laugh. 

Anthony looked grave and puzzled ; for Eliza- 
beth had caused quite a scandal in the communi- 
ty on that occasion. No wonder the old ladies in 
their old dowdy bonnets, the young ones in their 
ill-made woollen dresses, the preacher preaching 
against the vanities of the world, had all been 
shocked and outraged, when after tlio sermon 
had begun, the door opened, and Elizabeth ap- 
peared in the celebrated pink silk dress, with 
flowers in her hair, white lace falling from her 
shoulders, a bouquet, a gold fan, and glittering 
bracelets. Mme. Jacob's head nearly shook oft" 
with horror. The word was with the Pasteur 



244 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH, 



Bonlot, who did not conceal his opinion, and 
whose strictures introduced into tlie sermon 
were enough to make a less hardened sinner 
quake in her shoes. Many of the great leaders 
of the Protestant world in Paris had been present 
on that occasion. Some would not speak to her, 
some did speak very plainly. Elizabeth took it 
all as a sort of triumph, bent her head, smiled, 
fanned herself, and when ordered out of the room 
at last by her mother, left it with a splendid cour- 
tesy to the Rev. M. Boulot, and thanked him for 
his beautiful and improving discourse. And 
then, when she was np stairs in her own room 
again, where she had been decking herself for 
the last hour — the tallow candle was still splut- 
tering on the table — her clothes all lying about 
the room — she locked the door, tore off her or- 
naments, her shining dress, and flung herself 
down on the floor, cr\ingand sobbing as if her 
heart would break. "Oh, I want to go! Iwantto 
go ! Oh, take me away ! " she prayed and sobbed. 
"Oh, what harm is there in a pink gown more 
than a black one ! Oh, why does not John Dam- 
pier come and fetch me ? Oh, what dolts, what 
idiots, those people are ! What a heart-broken 
girl I am ! Poor Elly, poor Elly, poor, poor 
girl !" said she, pitying herself, and stroking her 
tear-stained cheeks. And so she went on, until 
she had nearly worn herself out, poor child. Slie 
really was almost heart-broken. This unconge- 
nial atmosphere seemed to freeze and chill her 
best impulses. I can not help being sorry for her, 
and sympathizing with her against that rigid 
community down below, and yet, after all, there 
was scarcely one of the people whom she so scorn- 
ed who was not a better Christian than poor Eliza- 
beth, more self-denying, more scrupulous, more 
patient in effort, more diligent — not one of them 
that did not lead a more useful life than hers. It 
was in vain that her mother had offered her class- 
es in the schools, humble neiglibors to visit, sick 
people to tend. "Leave me alone," the girl 
would say. "You know how I hate all that 
cant !" Mme. Tourneur herself spent her whole 
days doing good, patronizing the poor, lecturing 
the wicked, dosing the sick, superintending 
countless charitable communities. Her name 
was on all tlie committees, her decisions were 
deferred to, her wishes consulted. She did not 
once regret tlie step she had taken ; she was a 
clever, ambitious, active-minded woman ; she 
found herself busy, virtuous, and respected ; what 
more could she desire ? Her daughter's unhappi- 
ness did not give her any very great concern. 
"It would go off iu time," she said. But days 
went by, and EHy was only more hopeless, more ' 
heart-broken ; black lines came under the blue , 
eyes; from being a stout hearty girl, she grew ' 
thin and languid. Seeing her day by day, they | 
none of them noticed that she was looking ill, j 
except Anthony, who often imagined a change 
would do her good ; only how was this to be 
managed? He could only think of one way. I 
He was thinking of it, as he followed her out in- 
to the court-yard to-day. The sun was low in 
the west, the long shadows of the trees flickered ! 



across the stones. Say what he would, the blue 
gown, the wall, the yellow hair, made up a pretty 
little piece of coloring. With all her faults, An- 
thony loved Elly better than any other liuman 
being, and would have given his life to make 
her happy. 

" I can not bear to see you so unhappy," said 
he, in French, speaking ver}' simply, in his usual 
voice. "Elizabeth, why don't you do as your 
mother has done, and marry a French pasteur, 
who has loved you ever since tlie day he first 
saw you ? You should do as you liked, and leave 
this house, where you are so miserable, and get 
away from Aunt Rose, who is so ill-natured. I 
would not propose such a scheme if I saw a chance 
for something better ; but any thing would be an 
improvement on the life you are leading here. 
It is wicked and profitless, and you are kill- 
ing yourself and wasting your best days. You 
are not taking up your cross with joy and witii 
courage, dear Elizabeth. Perhaps by starting 
afresh — " His voice failed him, but his eyes 
spoke and finislied the sentence. 

This was Anthony's scheme. Elly opened 
her round eyes, and looked at him all amazed 
and wondering. A year ago it would have 
been very different, and so she thought as she 
scanned him. A year ago slie would have 
scorned the poor fellow, laughed at him, tossed 
her head, and turned away. But was this tlie 
Elly of a year ago? This unhappy, broken- 
spirited girl, with dimmed beauty, dulled spirits, 
in all her ways so softened, saddened, silenced. 
It was almost another person than the Elizabeth 
Gilmour of former times, who spoke, and said, 
still lo(?king at him steadfastly: "Thank you, 
Anthony ; I will think about it, and tell you 
to-morrow what — what I think." 

Anthony blushed, and fivltered a few unintel- 
ligible words, and turned away abruptly, as he 
saw Madame Jacob coming towards them. As 
for Elly, she stood quite still, and perfectly cool, 
and rather bewildered, only somcAvhat surprised 
at herself. " Can this be me ?" she was think- 
ing. " Can that kind fellow be the boy I used 
to laugh at so often ? Shall I take him at his 
word? Why not—?" 

But Madame Jacob's long nose came and 
put an end to her wonderings. This lady did 
not at all approve of gossi])ing ; she stepped up 
with an inquiring sniff, turned round to look 
after Anthony, and then said, rather viciously : 
"Our Christian brothers and sisters will assem- 
ble shortly for their pious Wednesday meetings. 
It is not by exchanging idle words with my 
nephew that you will best prepare your mind 
for the exercises of this evening. Retire into 
your own room, and see if it is possible to com- 
pose yourself to a fitter frame of mind. Tou- 
Tou, Lou- Lou, my children, what are you 
about ?" 

"I am gathering pretty flowers, mamma," 
shouted Lou-Lou. 

"I am picking up stones for my little bas- 
ket," said Tou-Tou, coming to the railing. 

'•I will allow four minutes," said their moth- 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



24: 



er, looking tit her watch. "Then you will 
come to me, both of you, in my room, and ap- 
ply yourselves to something more profitable 
than filling your little baskets. Elizabeth, do 
j-ou mean to obey me ?" 

Very much to Madame Jacob's surprise, 
Elizabeth walked quietly before her into the 
house without saying one word. The truth 
was, she was preoccupied with other things, 
and forgot to be rebellious. She was not even 
rebellious in her heart when she was up stairs 
sitting by the bedside, and puzzling her brains 
over Anthony's scheme. It seemed a relief cer- 
tainly to turn from the horrible monotony of 
her daily life, and to think of his kindness. 
He was very rough, very uncouth, very young ; 
but he was shrewd, and kind, and faithful, more 
tolerant than his father — perhaps because he 
felt less keenly; — not sensitive, like him, but 
more patient, dull over things which are learnt 
by books, but quick at learning other not less 
useful things which belong to the experience of 
daily life. When Elly came down into the 
re'fectoire where they were all assembled, her 
m'other was surprised to see that she had dressed 
herself, not in the objectionable pink silk, but in 
a soft gray stuff gown, all her yellow hair was 
smooth and shining, and a little locket hung 
round her neck tied with a blue ribbon. The 
little bit of color seemed reflected somehow in 
her eyes. They looked blue to-night, as they 
used to look once when slie was happy. Ma- 
dame Tourneur was quite delighted, and came 
up and kissed her, and said, " Elly, this is how 
I like to see you." 

Madame Jacob tossed her head, and gave a 
rough pull at the ends of the ribbon. '■^This 
was quite unnecessary," said she. 

"Ah!" cried Elly, "you have hurt me!" 

"Is not that the locket Miss Dampier gave 
you?" said Madame Tourneur. "You had 
best put such things away in your drawer an- 
other time. But it is time for you to take your 
place." 



CHAPTER IV. 



Unhappier are they to wliom a higher instinct has been 
given, who struggle to be persons, not machines ; to whom 
the universe is not a warehouse, or at b;st a fancy bazar, 
but a mystic temple and a hall of doom. 

A KCMBER of stra\K chairs were ranged along 
tlie room, with a row of seats behind, for the 
pasteurs who were to address the meeting. 

The people began to arrive very ])unctually : 
One or two grand-looking French ladies in 
caslimeres, a good many limp ones, a stray man 
or two, two English clergymen in white neck- 
cloths, and five or six Englishwomen in old 
bonnets. A little wliispering and chattering 
went on among the young French girls, who 
arrived guarded by their mothers. The way 
in which French mothers look after their daugh- 
ters, tie their bonnet-strings, pin their collars, 
carry their books and shawls, etc., and sit beside 
them, and always answer for them if they are 



spoken to, is very curious. Now and then, 
however, they relax a little, and allow a little 
whispering with young companions. There was 
a low murmur and a slight bustle as four pas- 
teurs of unequal heights walked in and placed 
: themselves in the reserved seats. M. Stephen 
I Tourneur followed and took his place. With 
what kind steadfast glances he greeted his au- 
dience ! Even Elizabeth could not resist the 
charm of his manner, and she admired and re- 
spected him, much as she disliked the exercise 
of the evening. 

His face lit up with Christian fervor, his eyes 
shone and gleamed with kindness, his voice, 
j when he began to speak, thrilled with earnest- 
I ness and sincerity. There was at times a won- 
^ derful ])ower about the frail little man, the pow- 
er which is won in many a desperate secret 
struggle, the power which comes from a whole 
, life of deep feeling and honest endeavor. No 
\ wonder that Stephen Tourneur, who had so 
I often wrestled with the angel and overcome his 
own passionate spirit, should have influence over 
others' less strong, less impetuous than his own. 
; Elly could not but admire him and love him, 
j many of his followers worshii)ped him with the 
; most affecting devotion ; Anthony, his son, loved 
him too, and would have died for him in a quiet 
wav, but he did not blindly believe in his fa- 
ther. 

But listen ! What a host of eloquent words, 
] of tender thoughts, come alive from his lips to- 
j night ! What reverent faith, what charity, what 
fervor ! The people's eyes were fixed upon his 
kind, eloquent face, and their hearts all beat in 
sympathy with his own. 

One or two of the Englishwomen began to 
cry. One French lady was swaying herself 
backward and forward in rapt attention ; the 
two clergymen sat wondering in their white 
neckcloths. What would they give to preach 
such sermons ! And the voice went on utter- 
ing, entreating, encouraging, rising and sink- 
ing, ringing with passionate cadence. It ceased 
at last, and tiie only sounds in the room were a 
few sighs, and the suppressed sobs of one or two 
women. Elizabeth sighed, among others, and 
sat very still with lier hands clasped in her lap. 
For t!ie first time in her life she was wondering 
whether she had not perhaps been in the wrong 
hitherto, and Tourneur, and Madame Jacob, 
and all the rest in the right — and whether hap- 
piness was not the last thing to search for, and 
those things of which he had spoken the first 
and best and only necessities. Alas ! wliat 
strange chance was it that at that moment slie 
raised her head and looked up with her great 
blue eyes, and saw a strange familiar face under 
one of tlie dowdy English bonnets — a face, thin, 
pinched, with a hooked nose, and sandy liair — 
that sent a little thrill to her heart, and made 
her cry out to herself eagerly, as a rush of old 
memories and hopes came over her, that happi- 
ness was sent into the world for a gracious pur- 
pose, and that lore meant goodness and happi- 
ness too sometimes. And, yes — no — yes — that 



24G 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



was Lady Dampier ! and was John in Paris, 
perhaps? and Miss Dampier? and were tlie 
dear, dear old days come back ? . . . . 

After a few minutes the congregation began 
to sing a hymn, the Englisii ladies joining in 
audibly with their queer accents. The melody 
swayed on, horribly out of tune and out of time, 
in a wild sort of minor key. Tou-Tou and Lou- 
Lou sang, one on each side of tiieir mother, ex- 
ceedingly loud and shrill, and one of the clergy- 
men attempted a second, after which the discord- 
ance reached its climax. Elly had laughed 
on one or two occasions, and indeed I do not 
wonder. To-day she scarcely heard the sound 
of tlie voices. Her heart was beating with hope, 
delight, wonder ; her head was in a whirl, her 
whole frame trembling with excitement, that in- 
creased every instant. Would M. Boulot's ser- 
mon never come to an end? Monsieur Bon- 
temps's exposition. Monsieur do Marveille's re- 
ports, go on forever and ever? 

But at last it was over ; a little rustling, a 
little pause, and all the voices beginning to mur- 
mur, and the chairs scraping ; people rising, 
a little group forming round each favorite pas- 
teur, hands outstretched, thanks uttered, people 
coming and going. With one bound Elly found 
herself standing by Lady Dampier, holding both 
her hands, almost crying with delight. The 
apathetic English lady was quite puzzled by the 
girl's exaggerated expressions. She cared very 
little for Elly Gilmour herself; she liked her 
very well, but she could not understand her ex- 
traordinary warmth of greeting. However, she 
was carried away by her feelings to the extent 
of saying: "You must come and see us to- 
morrow. We are only passing through Paris 
on our way to Schlangenbad for Lajtitia ; she 
has been sadly out of health and spirits lately, 
poor dear ! We are at the Hotel du Louvre. 
You must come and lunch with us. Ah ! here 
is your mother. How d'ye do, dear Madame 
Tourneur ? What a privilege it has been ! What 
a treat Mossu Tourneur has given us to-night. 
I have been quite delighted, I assure you," said 
her ladyship, bent on being gracious. 

Mme. Tourneur made the most courteous of 
salutations. " I am glad you came, since it was 
so," said she. 

"I want you to let Elly come and see me," 
continued Lady Dampier ; " she must come to 
luncli ; I should be so glad if you "would accom- 
pany her. I would offer to take her to the play, 
but I suppose you do not approve of such things 
any more." 

" My life is so taken up with other more seri- 
ous duties/' said Mme. Tourneur, with a faint 
superior smile, " that I have little time for mere 
woi-ldly amusements. I can not say that I de- 
sire them for my daughter." 

"Oh, of course," said Lady Dampier. "I 
myself — but it is only en passant, as we arc all 
going on to Schlangenbad in two days. It is 
really quite delightful to find you settled here so 
nicely. What a privilege it must be to be so 
constantly in Mossu Tourneur's society !" 



Madame Tourneur gave a bland assenting 
smile, and turned to speak to several people who 
were standing near. "Monsieur de Marveille, 
are you going ? Thanks, I will be at the com- 
mittee on Thursday without fail. Monsieur 
Boulot, you must remain a few minutes ; I want 
to consult you about that case in which la Com- 
tesse de Claris takes so deep an interest. Lady 
Macduff has also written to me to ask my hus- 
band's interest for her. Ah, Lady Sophia ! how 
glad I am you have returned ! is Lady Matilda 
better?" 

"Well, I'll wish you good-bye, Madame 
Tourneur," said Lady Dampier, rather impress- 
ed, and not much caring to stand by quite un- 
noticed while all these greetings were going on. 
"You will let Elly come to-morrow ?" 

"Certainly," said Mme. Tourneur. "You 
will understand how it is that I do not call. 
My days are much occupied. I have little time 
for mere visits of pleasure and ceremony. Mon- 
sieur Bontemps, one word — " 

"Elly, which is the way out?" said Lady 
Dampier, abruptly, less and less pleased, but 
more and more impressed. 

" I will show you," said Elly, who had been 
standing by all this time, and she led the way 
bare-headed into the court, over which the stars 
were shining tranquilly. The trees looked dark 
and rustled mysteriously along the wall, but all 
heaven was alight. Elly looked up for an in- 
stant, and then turned to her companion and 
asked her, with a voice that faltered a little, if 
they were all together in Paris ? 

"No; Miss Damjiier is in Scotland still," 
said my lady. 

It was not Miss Dampier's name of which 
Elizabeth Cilmour was longing to hear, she did 
not dare ask any more ; but it seemed as if a 
great weight had suddenly fallen upon her 
heart, as she thought that perhaps, after all, he 
was not come ; she should not hear of him, see 
him — who knows ? — perhaps, never again. 

Elly tried to unbar the great front door to let 
out her friend ; but she could not do it, and called 
to old Fran(;oise, who was passing across to the 
kitchen, to come and help her. And suddenly 
the bolt, Avhich had stuck in some manner, gave 
way, the gate opened wide, and as it opened 
Elly saw that there was somebody standing just 
outside under the lamp-post. The foolish child 
did not guess who it was,l^t said " Cood-night," 
with a sigh, and held out her soft hand to Lady 
Dampier. And then, all of a sudden the great 
load went away, and in its place came a sort 
of undreamed-of peace, happiness, and grati- 
tude. All the stars seemed suddenly to blaze 
more brightly ; all the summer's night to shine 
more wonderfully ; all trouble, all anxiousness, 
to melt away ; and John Dampier turned round 
and said : " Is tiiat you, Elizabeth ?" 

"And you?" cried Elly, springing forw.nrd, 
with both her hands outstretched. "Ah, I did 
not think who was outside the door." 

"How did you come here, John?" snid my 
ladv, vcrv much flustered. 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



2i; 



"I came to fetch you," said her son. "I 
wanted a walk, and Letty told me where you 
were gone." Lady Dampier did not pay 
much attention to his explanations; she was 
watching Elly with a dissatisfied face; and 
glancing round too, the young man saw that Elly 
was standing quite still under the archway, with 
her hands folded, and with a look of dazzled de- 
light in her blue eyes that there was no mis- 
taking. 

"You don't forget your old friends, Elly?" 
said he. 

"I! never, never," cried Elizabeth. 

"And I, too, do not forget," said he, very 
kindly, and lield out his hand once more, and 
took hers, and did not let it go. "I will come 
and see you, and bring Lstitia," he added, as his 
mother looked up rather severely. ' ' Good-night, 
dear Elly? I am glad you are unchanged." 

People, however slow they may be naturally, 
are generally quick in discovering admiration, 
or aftection, or respectful devotion to themselves. 
Lady Dampieronly suspected, her son was quite 
sure of poor Elly's feelings, as he said good-night 
under the archway. Indeed he knew a great 
deal more about them than did Elizabeth her- 
self. All she knew was that the great load was 
gone ; and she danced across the stones of the 
yard, clapping her hands in her old happy way. 
The windows of the salle were lighted up. She 
could see the people within coming and going, 
but she did not notice Anthony, wlio was stand- 
ing in one of them. He, for his part, was 
watching the little dim figure dancing and flit- 
ting about in the starlight. Had he, then, any 
thing to do with her happiness ? Was he in- 
deed so blessed ? His heart was overflowing 
with humble gratitude, with kindness, with won- 
der. He was happy at the moment, and was 
right to be grateful. She was happy, too — as 
thoroughly happy now, and carried away by her 
pleasure, as she had been crushed and broken by 
her troubles. "Ah! to think that the day has 
come at last, after watching all this long, long, 
cruel time ! I always knew it would come. 
Every body gets what they wish for sooner or 
later. I don't think any body was ever so mis- 
erable as I have been all this year, but at last — 
at last — " No one saw the bright, happy look 
that came into her face, for she was standing in 
the dark outside the door of the house. Slie 
wanted to dream, she did not want to talk to 
any body ; she wanted to tell herself over and 
over again how happy she was ; how she had 
seen him again ; how he had looked ; how kind- 
ly he had spoken to her. Ah ! yes, he had caved 
for her all the time ; and now he had come to 
fetch her away. She did not think niucli of 
poor Anthony ; if she did, it was to say to her- 
self that someliow it would all come right, and 
every body would be as well contented as she 
was. The door of the house opened while she 
still stood looking up at the stars. This time it 
was not John Dampier, but tlie Pasteur Tour- 
neur, who came from behind it. He put out his 
hand and took hold of hers. 



" You there, Elizabeth ! Come in, my child, 
you will be cold." And he drew her into the 
hall, where the Pasteurs Boulot and De Mar- 
veille were pulling on their cloaks and bidding 
every body good-night. 

The whole night Elizabeth lay starting and 
waking — so happy that she could not bear to go 
to sleep, to cease to exist for one instant. Oft- 
en it had been the other way, and she had been 
thankful to lay her weary head on her pillow, and 
close her aching eyes, and ffirget her troubles. 
But all this night she lay wondering what the 
coming day was to bring forth. She had better 
have gone to sleep. The coming day brought 
forth nothing at all, except, indeed, a little note 
from Lcetitia, written on a half-sheet of paper, 
which was put into her hand about eleven o'clock, 
just as she was sitting down to the dejeuner a la 
foiirchette. 

"Hotel du Piliin, Place Vendome. ) 
Wednesday evening. ) 

" My dear Elizabeth, — I am so disappoint- 
ed to think that I shall not perhaps see you, after 
all. Some friends of ours have just arrived, who 
are going on to Schlangenbad to-morrow, and 
Aunt Catherine thinks it will be better to set 
off a little sooner than we had intended, so as 
to travel with them. I wish you might be able 
to come and breakfast with us about nine to- 
morrow ; but I am afraid this is asking almost 
too mucii, though I should greatly enjoy seeing 
you again. Good-bye. If we do not meet now, 
I trust that on our return in a couple of months 
we may be more fortunate, and see much of each 
other. We start at ten, and shall reach Stras- 
bourg about eight. Ever, dear Elizabeth, affec- 
tionately yours, L^TiTiA Malcolm." 

" What has happened ?" said Madame Tour- 
neur, quite frightened, for she saw the girl's 
face change and her eyes suddenly filling with 
tears. 

"Nothing has happened," said Elizabeth. 
"I was only disappointed to think I should not 
see them again." And she put out her hand 
and gave her mother the note. 

" But why care so much for people who do 
not care for you?" said her mother. "Lady 
Dampier is one of the coldest women I ever 
knew ; and as for Lwtitia, if she loved you in 
the least, would she write you such a note as 
this?" 

"Mamma! it is a very kind note," said 
Elizabeth. " I know she loves me." 

" Do you think she cried over it, as you did ?" 
said her mother. " ' So disappointed ' — ' more 
fortunate on our return through Paris ? ' " 

" Do not let us judge our neighbors so hastily, 
my wife," said M. Tourneur. " Let Elizabeth 
love her friend. What can she do better?" 

Caroline looked up with an odd expression, 
shrugged her shoulders, and did not answer. 

Until breakfast was over, Elly kept up pretty 
well ; but when M. Tourneur rose and went 
away into his writing-room, when Anthony and 
the young men filed oft' by an opposite door, and 



248 



THE STORY OB^ ELIZABEFH. 



Mme. Tourneur disappeared to look to her house- 
hold duties — tlien, when the room was quiet 
again, and only Madame Jacob remained sew- 
inj; in a window, and Lou-Lou and Tou-Tou 
whispering over their lessons, suddenly the ca- 
nary burst out into a slirill piping jubilant song, 
and the sunshine poured in, and Elly's heart 
began to sink. And then suddenly the horrible 
reality seemed realized to her 

They were gone — those who had come, as she 
thought, to rescuelier. Could it be true — could 
it be I'eally true ? She had stood lonely on the 
arid sliore waving her signals of distress, and 
they who should have seen them never heeded, 
but went sailing away to happier lands, disap- 
pearing in the horizon, and leaving her to her 
fate. That fate which — it was more than she 
could bear. It seemed more terrible than ever 

to her to-day Ah ! silly girl, was her 

life as hard as the lives of thousands struggling 
along with her in the world, tossed and broken 
against the rocks, while she, at least, was safely 
landed on the beach ? She had no heart to 
think of others. She sat sickening with disap- 
pointment, and once more her eyes filled up with 
stinging tears. 

"Lou-Lou, Tou-Tou, come up to your les- 
sons," said Mrs. Jacob. " I do not wish you 
to see such a wicked example of discontent." 
The little girls went oft" on tiptoe ; and when 
these people were gone, Elizabeth was left quite 
alone. 

"I dare say I am very wicked," she was say- 
ing to herself. " I was made wicked. But 
this is more than I can bear — to live all day 
with the people I hate, and then when I do love 
with my whole heart, to be treated with such 
cruel indifference — such coldness. He otight to 
know, he must know, that he has broken my 
heart. Wliy does he look so kindly, and then 
forget so heartlessly ? . . . ." 

She hid her face in her hands, and bent her 
head over the wooden table. She did not care 
who knew her to be unhapp)' — what pain her 
unhappiness might give. The person who was 
likely to be most wounded by her poignant grief 
came into the room at the end of half an hour, 
and found her sitting still in the same attitude, 
with her head hanging, and her tears dribbling 
on the deal table. This was enough answer for 
poor Anthony. 

" Elizabeth," he faltered, " I see you can not 
make up your mind." 

" Ah ! no, no, Anthony, not yet," said Eliza- 
beth ; "but you are the only person in the 
world who cares for me ; and indeed, indeed, I 
am grateful." 

And then the poor little head sank down 
again, overwhelmed with its load of grief. 

" Tell me, Elizabeth, is there any thing in the 
world I can do to make you more happy ?" said 
Anthony. "My prayers, my best wishes, are 
yours. Is there nothing else?' 

"Only not to notice me," said EUy ; "only 
to leave me alone." 

And so Anthony, seeing that he could do 



nothing, went away very sad at heart. He had 
been so happy and confident the night before, 
and now he began to fear that what he longed 
for was never to be his. Poor boy, he buried 
his trouble in his own heart, and did not say 
one word of it to father, or mother, or young 
companions. 

Five or six weeks went by, and Elly heard no 
more of the Dampiers. Every day she looked 
more ill, more haggard ; her temper did not 
mend, her spirits did not improve. In June the 
five young men went home to their families. 
M. and Madame Tourneur went down to Fon- 
tainebleau for a week. Anthony set off for the 
South of France to visit an uncle. He was to be 
ordained in the autumn, and was anxious to pay 
this visit before his time should be quite taken 
up by his duties. Clementine asked for a holi- 
day, and went off to her friends in Passy ; and 
Elly remained at home. It was her own fault : 
Monsieur Tourneur had begged her to come 
with them ; her mother had scolded and remon- 
strated, all in vain. The wayward girl declared 
that she wanted no change, no company, that 
she was best where she was. Only for a week ? 
she would stay, and there was an end of it. I 
think the secret was, that she could not bear to 
quit Paris, and waited and waited, hoping 
against hope. 

"I am afraid yon will quarrel with JIndame 
Jacob," said her mother, as bhe was setting 
off. 

"I shall not speak to her," said Elly; and 
for two days she was as pood as her word. But 
on the third day this salutary silence was bro- 
ken. Madame Jacob, coming in with her bon- 
net on, informed Elizabeth that she was going 
out for the afternoon. 

" I confess it is not without great apprehen- 
sions lest you should get into mischief," says 
the lady. 

"And pray," says Elly, "am I more likely 
to get into mischief than you are? I am go- 
ing out." 

" You will do nothing of the sort," says Ma- 
dame Jacob. 

" I will do exactly as I choose," says Eliza- 
beth. 

In a few minutes a battle royal was raging ; 
Tou-Tou and Lou-Lou look on, all eyes and 
ears ; old Fran^oise comes up from the kitchen, 
and puts her head in at the door. 

Madame Jacob was desiring her, on no ac- 
count, to let Elizabeth out that afternoon, when 
Lou-Lou said, " There, tiiat was the street-door 
shutting;" and Tou-Tou said, "She is gone." 
And so it was. 

The willful Elizabeth had brushed past old 
Fran(;oise, rushed up to her own room, pulled 
out a shawl, tied on her bonnet, defiantly, run 
down stairs and across the yard, and, in a min- 
ute, was walking rapidly away Avitliout once 
looking behind her. Down the hill, past the 
hospital — they were carrying a wounded man 
in at the door as she passed, and she just 
caught a glimpse of his pale face, and turned 



THE STOKY OF ELIZABETH. 



elirinking away. Then she ROt into the Fau- 
bourg St. Honore', with its shops and its cab- 
stands, and busy people coming and going; and 
then she turned up the Kue d'Angouleme. In 
the Champs Elyse'es the afternoon sun was 
streaming ; there was a crowd, and, as it hap- 
pened, soldiers were 'marching along to the 
sound of martial music. She saw an empty 
bench, and sat down for a minute to regain 
breath and equanimity. The music put her in 
mind of the day when she had listened at her 
window — of the day when Iier heart was so 
heavy and then so light — of the day when An- 
thony had told her his scheme, when John 
Dampier had waited at the door: the day, the 
only one — she was not likely to forget it when 
she had been so happy, just for a little. And 
now — ? The bitter remembrance came rush- 
ing over her; and she jumped up, and walked 
faster and faster, trying to escape from it. 

She got into the Tuileries, and on into the 
Rue de Rivoli, but she thought that people 
looked at her strangely, and she turned home- 
wards at last. It was lonely, wandering about 
this busy city by herself. As she passed by 
the columns of St. Philip's Church, somebody 
came out, and the curtain swung back, and 
Elly, looking up, saw a dim, quiet interior, full 
of silent rays of light fiilling from the yellow 
windows and checkering the marble. She stop- 
ped, and went in with a sudden impulse. One 
old woman was kneeling on the threshold, and 
Elly felt as if she, too, wanted to fall upon her 
knees. What tranquil gloom, and silence, and 
repose ! Her own church was only open at 
certain hours. Did it always happen that pre- 
cisely at eleven o'clock on Sunday mornings she 
was in the exact frame of mind in which she 
most longed for spiritual communion and con- 
solation ? To be tightly wedged in between 
two other devotees, plied with chaufferettes by 
the pew-opener, forced to follow the extempore 
supplications of the preacher — did all this suf- 
fice to her wants ? Here was silence, coolness, 
a faint, half-forgotten smell of incense, there 
were long, empty rows of chairs, one or two 
people kneeling at the little altars, five or six 
little pious candles burning in compliment to 
the various saints and deities to whom they 
were dedicated. The rays of the little candles 
glimmered in the darkness, and the foot-falls 
fell quietly along the aisle. I, for my part, do 
not blame this poor foolish heart, if it offered 
lip an humble supplication here in the shrine 
of the stranger. Poor Elly was not very elo- 
quent ; she only prayed to be made a good girl 
and to be happy. But, after all, eloquence and 
long words do not mean any more. 

She walked home, looking up at the sunset 
lines which were streaking the sky freshly and 
delicately ; she thought she saw Madame Jacob's 
red nose up in a little pink cloud, and began to 
speculate how she would be received. And she 
had nearly reached her own door, and was toil- 
ing wearily up the last hilly piece of road, when 
she heard some quick steps behind ; somebody 



passed, turned round, said, "Why, Elly! I 
was going to see you." 

In an instant Elly's blue eyes were all 
alight, and her ready hand outstretched to 
John Dampier — for it was he. 



CHAPTER V. 

In looking backward, they may find that several things 
which were not the charm have more reality to this grop- 
ing memory than the charm itself which embalmed them. 

He had time to think, as he greeted her, how 
worn she looked, how shabbily she was di-essed. 
And yet what a charming, talking, brightening 
face it was. Wiien Elly smiled, her bonnet 
and dress became quite new and becoming, 
somehow. In two minutes he thought her 
handsomer than ever. They walked on, side 
by side, up the hilly street. She, trying to 
hide her agitation, asked him about Lastitia, 
about his mother, and dear Miss Dampier. 

"I think she does care for me still," said 
Elly ; "but you have all left off." 

"My dear child," said he, "how can j'ou 
think any thing so foolish?" 

"I have nothing else to do," said Elly, plaint- 
ively; "all day long I think about those happy 
times which are gone. I thougiit you had for- 
gotten me when you did not come." 

Dampier laughed a little uneasily. " I have 
had to take them to their watei-ing-place," said 
he; "I could not help it. But tell me about 
yourself. Are you not comfortable?" he ask- 
ed. 

" I am rather unhappj'," said Elizabeth. "I 
am not good, like they are, and oh ! I get so 
tired;" and then she went on and told him 
what miserable days she spent, and how she 
hated them, and she longed for a little pleasure 
and ease and happiness. 

He was very much touched, and very, very 
sorry. "You don't look well," he said. "You 
should have some amusement — some change. 
I would take you anywhere you liked. Why 
not come now for a drive ? See, here is a lit- 
tle open carriage passing. Sureh% with an old 
friend like me, there can be no harm." And 
he signed to the driver to stop. 

Elizabeth was quite frightened at the idea, 
and said, "Oh no, no! indeed." Whereas, 
Dampier only said: "Oh yes! indeed, you 
must. Why, I knew you when you were a 
baby — and your father and your grandmother 
— and I am a respectable middle-aged man, 
and it will do you good, and it will soon be a 
great deal too dark for any of your pasteurs to 
recognize you and report. We have been out 
riding together before now — why not come for 
a little drive in the Bois? Why not ?" 

So said Elly to herself, doubtfully ; and slie 
got in, still hesitating, and in a minute they were 
rolling away swiftly out at the gates of Paris, out 
towards the sunset — so it seemed to Elizabeth — 
and she forgot all her fears. The heavens glow- 



250 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



cd overhead ; her heart beat with intensest en- 
joyment. Presently, the twilight came falling 
with a green glow, with stars, with evening per- 
fumes, with lights twinkling from the carriages 
reflected on the lakes as they rolled past. 

And so at last she was happy, sometimes si- 
lent from delight, sometimes talking in her sim- 
ple, foolish way, and telling him all about her- 
self, her regrets, her troubles — about Anthony. 
She could not help it — indeed, she could not. 
Dampier, for his part, cried out at the notion of 
her marrying Anthony, made fun of him, laugh- 
ed at him, pitied liim. The poor fellow, now 
that she compared him to John Dampier, did in- 
deed seem dull, and strangely uncoutli, and com- 
monplace. 

"Marry that cub!" said Sir John; "you 
mustn't do it, my dear. You would be like the 
princess in the fixiry tale, who went off with the 
bear. It's downright wicked to think of such a 
thing. Elizabeth, promise me you won't. Does 
he ever climb up and down a pole ? is he fond of 
buns ? is he tame ? If your father were alive, 
would he suiter such a thing? Promise me, 
Elly, that you will never become Mrs. Bruin." 

"Yes; I promise," said Elly, with a sigh. 
"But he is so kind. Nobody is aS — " And 
then she stopped, and thought : "Yes; here was 
some one wiio was a great deal kinder." Talk- 
ing to Dampier was so easy, so pleasant, that 
she scarcely recognized her own words and sen- 
tences; it was like music in tune after music 
out of tune ; it was like running on smooth rails 
after rolling along a stony road: it was like 
breathing fresh air after a heated stifling atmos- 
phere. Somehow, he met her half-way ; he need 
not explain, recapitulate, stumble for words, as 
&he was forced to do with those practical, im- 
practical people at home. He understood what 
she wanted to say before she had half finished 
her sentence ; he laughed at her fine little jokes ; 
he encouraged, he cheered, he delighted her. 
If she had cared for him before, it was now a 
mad adoration which she felt for thio man. 
He suited her ; slie felt now tliat he was part of 
her life — the better, nobler, wiser part ; and if 
he was the other half of her life, surely, some- 
how, she must be as necessary to him as he was 
to her. Why had he come to see her else ? 
AVhy had he cared for her, and brought her 
here? Why was his voice so gentle, his man- 
ner so kind and sympathetic? He had cared 
for lier once, she knew he had ; and he cared 
for her still, she knew he did. If the whole 
world were to deceive her and fail her, slie would 
still trust him. And her instinct was not wrong: 
he was sincerely and heartily her friend. The 
carriage put them down a few doors from M. 
Tourneur's house, and then Elly went boldly up 
to the door and rang at the bell. 

"I shall come at four o'clock to-morrow, and 
take you for a drive," said John; "you look 
like another woman already." 

"It is no use asking Madame Jacob," said 
Elly ; "she would lock me up into my room. 
I will come somehow. How shall I thank you ?" 



"By looking well and happy again. I shall 
be so glad to have cured you !" 

"And it is so pleasant to meet with such a 
kind doctor," said Elly, looking up and smiling. 

" Good-bye, Elly," repeated Sir John, quite 
alFected by her gentle looks. 

Old Fran^oise opened -the door. Elly turn- 
ed a little pale. 

" Ah, ha ! vous voila," says the old woman ; 
"me'chante fille, you are going to get a pretty 
scolding. Where have you been ?" 

" Ah, Fran9.oise !" said Elly, "I have been 
so happy. I met Sir John Dampier : he is an 
old, old friend. He took me for a drive in the 
Bois. Is Madame Jacob very, very angry ?" 

"Well, you are in luck," says the old wom- 
an, who could never resist Elizabeth's pretty 
pleading ways ; "she came home an hour ago 
and fetched the children, and went out to dine 
in town, and I told her you were in your room." 

"Ah, you dear kind old woman !" said Elly, 
flinging her arms round her neck, and giving 
her a kiss. 

"There, there!" said the unblushing Fran- 
<;oise ; "I will put your convert in the salle." 

"Ah! I am very glad. I am so hungry, 
Fran^oise," said Elly, pulling oft" her bonnet, 
and shaking her loose hair as she followed the 
old woman across the court-yard. 

So Elizabeth sat down to dine off dry bread 
and cold mutton. But though she said she was 
hungry, she was too happy to eat much. The 
tallow candle flickered on the table. She 
thought of the candles in St. Philip's Church ; 
then she went over every word, every minute 
which she had spent since she was kneeling 
there. Old Fran(;oise came in with a little 
cake she had made her, and found Elizabeth sit- 
ting, smiling, with her elbows on the table. 
" Allons, allons ! " thought the old cook. " Here, 
eat, mamzelle," said she ; " faut plus sortir sans 
permission — hein ?" 

" Thank you, Fran^oise. How nice ! how 
kind of you!" said Elizabeth, in her bad French 
— she never would learn to talk proi)erly ; and 
then she ate her cake by the light of the candle, 
and this little dim tallow wick seemed to cast 
light and brilliance over the whole world, over 
her whole life, which seemed to her as if it would 
go on for ever and ever. Now and then, a tor- 
turing doubt, a misgiving, came over her, but 
these she put quickly aside. 

Madame Jacob was poui'ing out the coffee 
when Elly came down to breakfast next morn- 
ing, conscious and ashamed, and almost disposed 
to confess. "I am surprised," said Madame 
Jacob, "that you have the impudence to sit down 
at table with me;" and she said it in such an 
acid tone that all Ellys sweetness and ashamed- 
ness and penitence turned to bitterness. 

"I find it very disagreeable," says Elly ; " but 
I try and resign myself." 

" I shall write to my brother about you," con- 
tinued Madame Jacob. 

"Indeed!" says Elizabeth. "Here is a let- 
ter which he has written to me. What fun if it 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



251 



should be about you !" It was like Tourneur's 
handwriting, but it did not come from him. 
Elly opened it carelessly enough, but Tou-Tou 
and Lou-Lou exchanged looks of intelligence. 
Their mother had examined the little missive, 
and made her comments upon it: — 

"Avignon, Rue de la Clochette, \ 
Cliez le Pasteur Cli. Tourneur. / 

"My dear Elly, — I think of you so much 
and so constantly that I can not help wishing 
to make you think of me, if only for one min- 
ute, while you read these few words. I have 
been telling my uncle about you ; it is he who 
asks me why I do not write. But there are 
some things which are not to be spoken or to 
be written — it is only by one's life that one can 
try to tell them ; and you, alas ! do not care to 
hear the story of my life. I wonder will the 
day ever come when you will listen to it ? 

" I have been most kindly received by all my 
old fiiends down in these parts. Yesterday I 
attended the service in the Temple, and heard 
a most soul-stirring and eloquent oration from 
the mouth of M. le Pasteur David. I receive 
cheering accounts on every side. A new teni- 
])le has been opened at Beziers, thanks to the 
munificence of one of our coreligionnaires. The 
temple was solemnly opened on the Monday of 
the Fentecost. The discourse of dedication was 
pronounced by M. le Pasteur Borrel, of Nismes. 
Seven pasteurs en robe attended the ceremony. 
They tell me that the interdiction which had 
weighed for some years upon the temple at 
Fouqueure (Charente) has been taken off, and 
that the faitliful were able to reopen their tem- 
ple on the first Sunday in June. Need I say 
what vivid actions of grace were uttered on this 
happy occasion ? A Protestant school has also 
been established at Montauban, which seems to 
be well attended. I am now going to visit two 
of my uncle's confreres, MM. Bertoul and Jo- 
seph Aubre'. Of M. Bertoul I have heard much 
good. 

"Why do I tell you all this ? Do you care 
for what I care ? Could you ever bring yourself 
to lead the lifij; which I propose to lead ? Time 
only will show, dear Elizabeth. It will also 
show to you the faithfulness and depth of my 
affection. A. T." 

Elly put the letter down Avith a sigh, and 
went on drinking her coffee and eating her bread. 
Madame Jacob hemmed and tried to ask her a 
question or two on the subject, but Elly would 
not answer. Elly sometimes wondered at An- 
thony's fancy for iier, knowing how little suited 
she was to the way of life she was leading; she 
was surprised that his rigid notions should al- 
low him to entertain such an idea for an instant. 
But the truth was that Anthony was head over 
ears in love with her, and thought her perfec- 
tion at the bottom of his heart. 

Poor Anthony ! This is what he got in re- 
turn for his letter : — 

"My dear Anthony, — It can not be — nev- 
er — never. But I do care for you, and I mean 



to always. For you are my brother in a sort 
of way. I am your affectionate, grateful 

Elly." 
" P.S. — ^Your father and my mother are away 
at Fontainebleau. Madame Jacob is here, and 
more disagreeable than any thing you can im- 
agine." 

And so it was settled ; and Elly never once 
asked herself if she had been foolish or wise ; 
hat, after thinking compassionately about An- 
thony for a minute or two, she began to think 
about Dampier, and said to herself that she had 
followed his advice, and he must know best ; and 
Dampier himself, comfortably breakfasting in 
the coft'ee-room of the hotel, was thinking of her, 
and, as he thought, put away all unpleasant 
doubts or suggestions. " Poor little thing ! 
dear little thing!" he was saying to himself. 
" I will not leave her to the tender mercies of 
those fanatics. She will die — I see it in her 
eyes — if she stays there! My mother or Aunt 
Jean must come to her help; we must not de- 
sert her. Poor, poor little Elly, with her wist- 
ful face ! Why did not she make me marry her 
a year ago? I was very near it." 

He was faithful next day to his appointment, 
and Elly arrived breathless. " Madame Jacob 
had locked her up in her room," she said, only 
she got out of the window and clambered down 
by the vine, and here she was. " But it is the 
last time," she added. "Ah! let us make 
haste ; is not that Fran9oise?" He helped her 
in, and in a minute they were driving along the 
Faubourg. Elly let down the veil. Jolm saw 
that her hand was trembling, and ask.ed if she 
was afraid ? 

"I am afraid, because T know I am 5oing 
wrong," said Elly ; " only I think I should 
have died for want of fresh air in that hateful 
prison, if I had not come." 

"You used to like your little apartment near 
the Madeleine better," said Dampier; "that 
was not a prison." 

" I grow sick with regret M'hen I think of 
those days," Elly said. "Do you know that 
day you spoke to us in the Tuileries was the 
last happy day of my life, except — " 

"Except?" said Dampier. 

"Except yesterday," said Ell}'. "It is so 
delightful to do something wrong again." 

' ' Why should you think this is doing wrong ?" 
said Dampier. "You know me, and can trust 
me — can't you, Elly?" 

"Have I shown much mistrust?" said Elly, 
laughing ; and then she added more seriously, 
"I have been writing to Anthony this morning 
— I have done as you told me. So you see 
whether I trust you or not." 

"You have refused him?" said Dampier. 

"Yes ; are you satisfied ?" said Elly, looking 
with her bright blue-eyed glance. 

"He was unworthy of you," cried Dampier, 
secretly rather dismayed to find his advice so 
quickly acted upon. What had he done? 
would not that marriage, after all, have been* 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



the very best thing for Elly perhaps ? He was 
ghid and sorry, but I think he would rather have 
been more sorry and less glad, and have heard 
that Elly had found a solution to all her troubles. 
He thoupht it necessary to be sentimental ; it 
was the least he could do, after what she had 
done for him. 

"Why wouldn't you let me in when I came 
to see you one day long ago, just before I left | 
Paris?" he asked, suddenly. "Do you know- 
what I wanted to say to you?" 

Elly blushed up under her veil. "Mamma 
had desired Clementine to let no one in. Did 
you not know I would have seen you if I 
could?" 

" I knew nothing of the sort," said Dampier, 
rather sadly. " I wish — I wish — I had known 
it." He forgot that, after all, that was not the 
real reason of his going away without speaking. 
He chose to imagine that this was the reason 
—that he would have married Elly but for this. 
He forgot his own careful scruples and hesita- 
tions ; his doubts and indecision ; and now to- 
day he forgot every thing, except that he was 
very sorry for Elly, and glad to give her a little 
pleasure. He did not trouble himself as to 
what people would say of her — of a girl who 
was going about with a man who was neither 
her brother nor her husband. Nobody would 
know her. Tiie only people to fear were the 
people at home, who should never hear any thing 
about it. He would give her and give himself a 
little happiness, if he could; and he said to 
himself that he was doing a good action in so 
doing; he would write to his aunt about her, 
he would be her friend and her doctor, and if 
he could bring a little color in those wasted 
cheeks and happiness into those sad eyes, it 
would be wicked and cruel not to do so. 

And so, like a quack doctor, as he was, he ad- 
ministered his drug, which soothed and dulled 
her pain for the moment, only to increase and 
hasten the progress of the cruel malady which 
was destroying her. They drove along past the 
Madeleine, along the broad glittering Boule- 
vards, with their crowds, their wares, people 
thronging the pavements, horses and carriages 
travelling alongside with them ; the world, the 
flesh, and the devil jostling and pressing past. 

" There is a theatre, " cried Elly, as they came 
to a sudden stop. " I wonder, shall I ever go 
again ? What fun it used to be !" 

"Will yon come to-night?" asked Dampier, 
smiling. "I will take care of you." 

Elly, who had found her good spirits again, 
laughed and clasped her hands. " How I should 
like it! Oh! how I wish it was possible! but 
it would be quite, quite impossible." 

" Have you come to think such vanities 
wrong ?" snid Dampier. 

"Not wrong. Where is the harm? Only 
nnattain;ible. Imagine Madame Jacob ; think 
of the dragons, who would tear me to pieces if 
they found me out — of Anthony — of my stepfa- 
ther." 
, " You need not show them the play-bill," 



said Dampier, laughing. "You will be quite 
sure of not meeting any of the pasteurs there. 
Could not j'ou open one of those barred win- 
dows and jump out? I would come with a lad- 
der of ropes, if you will let nie." 

" I should not want a ladder of ropes," said 
Elly; "the windows are quite close to the 
ground. What fun it would be ! but it is quite, 
quite impossible, of course." 

Dampier said no more. He told the driver to 
turn back, and to stop at the Louvre ; and he 
made her get out, and took her up stairs into 
the great golden hall with the tall windows, 
through which you can see the Seine as it rush- 
es under the bridges, and the light as it f;ills on 
the ancient stately quays and houses, on the ca- 
thedr.ll, on the towers of Paris. It was like 
enchantment to Elly ; all about the atmosphere 
was golden, was bewitched. She was eagerly 
drinking her cup of happiness to the dregs, she 
was in a sort of glamour. She hardly could 
believe that this was herself. 

They went and sat down on the great round 
sofa in the first room, ojiposite the " Marriage 
of Cana," with " St. Mich4el killing the Drag- 
on " on one side, and the green pale wicked 
j woman staring at them from behind : the pale 
i woman with the unfothomable face. Elly kejit 
turning round every now and then, fascinated 
I by her cold eyes. Dampier was a connoisseur, 
I and fond of pictures, and he told Elizabeth nil 
! about those which he liked best ; told her about 
j tlie painters — about their histories. She was 
very ignorant, and scarcely knew the common- 
est stories. How she listened, how she treas- 
ured up his words, how she remembered, in af- 
ter days, every tone as he spoke, every look in 
his kind eyes! He talked when he should have 
been silent, looked kind when he should haA^e 
turned his cj'cs away. W^hat cruel kindness ! 
what fatal friendship ! He imagined she liked 
him ; he knew it, indeed : but he fancied that 
she liked him and loved him in the same quiet 
way in which he loved her — hopelessly, regret- 
fully, resignedly. As he walked by her side 
along those wonderful galleries, now and then 
it occurred to him that, perhaps, after all, it 
was scarcely wise; but he put the thought 
quickly away, as I have said already, and blind- 
ed himself, and said, surely it was right. They 
were standing before a kneeling abbess in white 
j flannel, painted by good old Philip of Cham- 
pagne, and laughing at her droll looks and her 
j long nose, when Sir John, happening to turn 
round, saw his old acquaintance De Vaux com- 
ing directly towards them, with his eye-glasses 
j stuck over his nose, and his nose in the air. 
I He came up quite close, stared at the abbess, 
, and walked on without apparently seeing or 
recognizing them. Elly had not turned her 
1 head, but Dampier drew a long breath when he 
j was gone. Elly wondered to see him looking 
j so grave when she turned around with a smile 
and made some little joke. " I think we ought 
I to go, Elly," said he. " Come, this place will 
1 soon be shut." 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



253 



They drove home through the busy street, 
once more, through the golden sunset. They 
stopped at the corner by the hospital, and Elly 
said " Good-b3-e," and jumped out. As Elly 
was reluctantly turning to go away, Dampicr 
felt that he must see her once more : that he 
couldnt part from her now. "Elly," he said, 
"I shall be here at six o'clock on Friday. 
This is Tuesday, isn't it? and we must go to 
the play just once together. Won't you come? 
Do, please, come." 

"Shall I come? I will think about it all 
to-morrow," said Elly, "and make up my 
mind." And tlien Dampier watched the slim 
little figure disappear under the doorway. 

Fortune was befriending Elly to-day. Old 
Fran9oise had left the great door open, and now 
she slipped in and ran up to her own room, 
where she found the key in the lock. She 
came down quite demurely to dinner when 
Lou-Lou came to summon her to the frugal re- 
past. 

All dinner-time she thought about her 
scheme, and hesitated and determined, and 
hesitated and wished wistfully, and then sud- 
denly said to herself that she would be happy 
her own way, come what might. " We will 
eat, drink, and be merry," said Elly to herself, 
with a little wry face at the cabbage, "for to- 
morrow we die." 

And so the silly girl almost enjoyed the no- 
tion of running wild in this reckless way. Her 
whole life, which had been so dull and weari- 
some before, glittered with strange happiness 
and bewildering hope. She moved about the 
liouse like a person in a dream. She was very 
silent, but that of late had been her habit, Ma- 
dame Jacob looked surprised sometimes at her 
gentleness, but thought it was all right, and 
did not trouble herself about much else besides 
Tou-Tou's and Lou-Lou's hymns and lessons. 
She had no suspicion. She thought that Eliza- 
beth's first escapade had been a mere girlish 
freak ; of tlie second she knew nothing ; of the 
third not one dim imagination entered her 
head. She noticed tliat Elly did not eat, but 
she looked well and came dancing into the 
room, and she (Mme. Jacob) supposed it was 
all riglit. Was it all right ? The whole sum- 
mer nights Elly used to lie awake with wide- 
open eyes, or spring from her bed and stand for 
long hours leaning from her window, staring at 
the stars and telling them all her story. The 
life she was leading was one of morbid excite- 
ment and feverish dreams. 



CHAPTER VI. 



What are we sent on earth for? Say to toil, 
Nor seek to leave tlie tending of tlie vines, 
For all the beat of day till it declines, 

And death's mild curfew shall fiom work assoil. 

Madamk Jacob had a friend at Asnieres, an 
old maiden lady, Tou-Tou's godmother, who 
was well-to-do in tlie world, with her £200 a 



year, it was said, and who lived in a little Chi- 
nese pagoda by the railway. Now and tlien this 
old lady used to write and invite Tou-Tou and 
Lou-Lou and their mother to come to see her, 
and you may be sure her invitations were never 
disregarded. 

^Ime. Jacob did look at Elizabeth rather 
doubtfully when she found on Wednesday morn- 
ing the usual ill-spelt, ill -written little letter. 
But, after all, Tou-Tou's prospects were not to 
be endangered for the sake of looking after a 
young woman like Elizabeth, were she ten times 
tnore wayward and ill-behaved, and so the little 
girls were desired to make up their paquets. 
It was a great event in Mme. Jacob's eyes ; the 
house echoed with her directions; Francjoise 
went out to request assistance, and came back 
with a friend, who helped her down with the box. 
The little girls stood at the door to stop the om- 
nibus, which was to take them to the station. 
They were off at last. The house-door closed 
ujjon them with a satisfactory bang, and Elly 
breathed freely and ran through the deserted 
rooms, clapping and waving her hands, and danc- 
ing her steps, and feeling at last that she was free. 
And so the morning hours went by. Old Fran- 
9oise was not sorry either to see everybody go. 
She was sitting in the kitchen in the afternoon, 
peeling onions and potatoes, when Elly came 
wandering in in her restless way, with her blue 
eyes shining and her curly hair pushed back. 
Wiiat a tranquil little kitchen it was, with a 
glimpse of the court-yard outside, and the cocks 
and the hens, and the poplar-trees waving in the 
sunshine, and the old woman sitting in her white 
cap busy at her homely work. Elly did not think 
how tranquil it was, but said to herself, as she 
looked at Francjoise, how old she was, and what a 
strange fate hers, that she should be there quiet- 
ly peeling onions at the end of her life. What 
a horrible f\ite, thought Elizabeth, to be sitting 
by one's grave, as it were, paring vegetables 
and cooking broth to the last day of one's exist- 
ence. Foor Fran(;oise ! And then she said out 
loud, " Fran^oise, tell me, are cooks like la- 
dies ? do they get to hate their lives sometimes ? 
Are you not tired to death of cooking pot-au- 

" I am thankful to have pot-cm-ftu to cook, " 
said Fran9oise. " Mademoiselle, I should like 
to see you ephicher vegetables sometimes, as I do, 
instead of running about all day. It would be 
much better for you." 

" Ecoutez, Fran9oisc," said Elly, imploring- 
ly; " when I am old like you I will sit still hy 
the fire; now that I am young I want to run 
about. I am the only young person in this 
house. They are all old here, and like dead 
people, for they only think of heaven." 

"That is because they are on the road," said 
Fran9oise. "Ah! they are good folks — they 
are." 

"I see no merit in being good," Elizabeth 
said, crossly, sitting down on the table, and dab- 
bling her fingers in a bowl of water which stood 
there ; " they are good because they like it. It 



2oi 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



amuses them, it is their way of thinking — they 
like to be better than their neighbors." 

' ' Fi done, Elizabeth ! " said Fran9oise. "You 
do not amuse them ; but they are good to you. 
Is it Anthony's way of thinking when he bears 
with all your caprices? When my master 
corries home quite worn out and exhausted, and 
trudges off again without so much as waiting for 
his soup, if he hears he is wanted by some poor 
person or other, does he go because it pleases 
bim, or because he is serving the Lord in this 
world, as he hopes to serve him in the next?" 

Elly was a little ashamed, and said, looking 
down : " Have you always lived here with him, 
Francj'oise ?" 

"Not I," said Fran9oise ; " ten years, that is 
all. But that is long enough to tell a good man 
from a bad one. Good people live for others, 
and don't care about themselves. I hope when 
I have known you ten years, that you too will be 
a good woman, mademoiselle." 

" Like Madame Jacob ?" said Elly. 

Fran9oisesl]rugged her shoulders rather doubt- 
fully, and Elly sat quite still watching her. 
Was it not strange to be sitting there in this 
quiet every-day kitchen, with a great unknown 
world throbbing in her heart. " How little Fran 
^.oisc guesses !" thought Elly. ' ' Fran9oise, who 
is only thinking of her mai-mite and her pota- 
toes." Elly did not know it, butFran^oise had 
a very shrewd suspicion of what was going on 
in the poor little passionate heart. "The girl 
is not suited here," thought the old woman. 
" If she has found some one, so much the bet- 
ter ; Clementine has told me something about 
it. Ifmadaraewere to drive him off again, that 
would be a pity. But I saw them quite plainly 
that day I went to Martin, tlie chemist's, driving 
away in that little carriole, and I saw him that 
night wlien he was waiting for his mother." 

So old Fran^oise peels potatoes, and Elly sits 
wondering and saying over to herself, "Good 
people live for others." Who had she ever lived 
for but herself? Ah! there was one person 
whom she would live and die for now. Ah I 
at last she would be good. "And about the 
play ?" tliought Elly ; " shall I go — shall I send 
him word that I will not? There is no harm 
in a play ; why should I not please him and accept 
his kindness ? it is not tlie first time that we have 
been there together. I know that plays are not 
wrong, whatever these stupid people say. Ah ! 
surely if iiappiness is sent to me, it would be 
wicked to turn away, instead of being always — 
always gi-ateful all my life." And so, though she 
told herself that it could not be wrong to go, she 
forgot to tell herself that it was wrong to go with 
him ; her scruples died away one by one ; once 
or twice she thought of being brave and staying 
away, and sending a message by old Fran9oise, 
but she only thought of it. 

All day long, on Friday, she wandered about 
the empty house, coming and going, like a girl 
bewitched. She went into the garden; she 
picked flowers and pulled them to pieces, trying 
to spell out her fote ; she tried to make a wreath 



of vine-leaves, but got tired, and flung it away. 
Old Fran9oise, from her kitchen window, watch- 
ed her standing at tlie grating and pulling at the 
vine ; but the old woman's spectacles were some- 
what dim, and she did not see Elly's two bright 
feverish eyes and her burning cheeks from the 
kitchen window. As the evening drew near, 
Elly's cheeks became pale and her courage near- 
ly failed her, but she had been three days at 
home. Monsieur and Madame Tourneur were 
expected the next morning; she had not seen 
Dampier for a long, long time — so it seemed to 
her. Yes, she would go; she did not care. 
Wrong ? Right ? It \vas neither wrong nor 
right — it was simply impossible to keep away. 
She could not think of one reason in the world 
why she should stop. She felt a thousand in 
her heart urging, ordering, compelling her to 
go. She went up to her own room after din- 
ner, and began to dress, to plait, and to smooth 
her pretty curly hair. She put on a white dress, 
a black lace shawl, and then she found that she 
had no gloves. Some of her ancient belongings 
she kejit in a drawer, but they were not replaced 
as they wore out. And Elly possessed dia- 
mond rings and bracelets in abundance ; but 
neither gloves nor money to buy them. What 
did it matter ? She did not think about it 
twice ; she put on her shabby bonnet and ran 
down stairs. She was just going out, when she 
remembered that Fran9oise would wonder what 
had become of her, and so she went to the kitch- 
en door, opened it a little way, and said, " Good- 
night, Fran9oise. Don't disturb me to-night, I 
want to get up early to-morrow." 

Fran9oise, who had invited a friend to spend 
the evening, said, "Bon soir, mamzelle !" rather 
crossly — she did not like her kitchen invaded at 
all times and hours — and then Elly was free to 
go. 

She did not get out by the window — there was 
no need for that, but she unfostened it, and un- 
bailed the shutter on the inside, so that, though 
every thing looked much as usual on the outside, 
she had only to push and it would fly open. 

As she got to the door her heart began to 
beat, and she stopped for an instant to think. 
Inside, here, where she was standing, was dull- 
ness, weariness, security, death ; outside, won- 
derful happiness, dangerous happiness, and life 
— so it seemed to her. Inside were cocks and 
hens, and sermons, weary exhortations, oldFran- 
9oise peeling her onions. Outside, John Dam- 
pier waiting, the life she was created for, fresh 
air, congenial spirits, light and brightness — and 
heaven there as well as here, thought Elly, clasp- 
ing her hands ; heaven spreading across the 
house-tops as well as over this narrow court- 
yard. " What shall I do ? Oh, shall I be for- 
given ? Oh ! it will be forgiven me, surely, sure- 
ly !" the girl sighed, and, with trembling hands, 
she undid the latch and went out into the dusky 
street. The little carriole, as Fran9oise called 
it, was waiting, a short way down, at the corner 
of the hospital ; and Dampier came to meet her, 
looking very tall and straight througli the twi- 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



25;- 



light. She wondered at his grave, anxious face ; 
but, in truth, he too was exceedingly nervous, 
though he would not let her know it ; he was 
beginning to be afraid for her, and had resolved 
that he would not take her out again ; it might, 
after all, be unpleasant for them both ; he had 
seen De Vaux, and found out, to his annoy- 
ance, that he had recognized them in the Lou- 
vre the day before, and had passed them by on 
purpose. Tliere was no knowing what trouble 
lie might not get poor Elly into. And besides, 
his aunt Jean was on her way to Paris. She 
had been keeping house for Will Dampier, she 
wrote, and she was coming. Will was on his 
way to Switzerland, and she should cross wiiii 
him. 

That very day John had received a letter from 
her, in answer to the one he had written about 
Elly. He had written it three days ago ; but 
he was not the same man he had been three 
days ago. He was puzzled, and restless, and 
tlioroughly wretched — that was the truth ; and he 
was not used to be unhappy, and he did not like 
it. Elly's face haunted him day and night ; he 
thought of her continually ; he tried, in vain, to 
forget her, to put her out of his mind. Well, 
on the whole, he was glad that his aunt was 
coming, and very glad that his mother and Lte- 
titia were still away, and unconscious of what 
he was thinking about. 

" So you did not lose courage?" he said, as 
they were driving off. "How did you escape 
Madame Jacob?" 

"I have been all alone," said Elly, "these 
two days. How I found courage to come I can 
not tell you. I don't quite believe tiiat it is I 
myself who am here. It seems impossible. I 
don't feel like myself — I have not for some days 
past. All I know is, that I am certain those hor- 
rible long days have come to an end." John 
Dampier was frightened — he hardly knew why 
— when he heard her say this. 

" I hope so, most sincerely," said he. " But, 
after all, Elly, we men and women are rarely 
contented ; and there are plenty of days, more 
or less tiresome, in store for me and for you, I 
hope. We must pluck up our courage and go 
through with them. You are such a sensitive, 
weak-minded little girl that you will go on 
breaking your heart a dozen times a day to the 
end of your life." 

Dampier looked very grave as he spoke, but 
it was too dark for her to see him. He was 
angry and provoked with himself, and an insane 
impulse came over him to knock his head vio- 
lently against the sides of the cab. Insane, do 
I say ? It would have been the very best thing 
he could have done. But tliey drove on all the 
same : Elly in rapture. She was not a bit 
afraid now. Her spirits were so high and so 
daring that they would carry her through any 
tiling ; and wVien she was with Dampier she was 
content to be happy, and not to trouble herself 
with vague apprehensions. And she was happy 
now : her eyes danced with delight, her heart 
beat with expectation, she seemed to have be- 



come a child again, she was not like a woman 
any more. 

"Have you not a veil?" said Dampier, as 
they stopped before the theatre. There was a 
great light, a crowd of people passing and re- 
passing ; other carriages driving up. 

"No," said Elly. "What does it matter? 
Who will know me?" 

"Well, make haste. Here, take my arm," 
said Sir John, hurriedly ; and he hastily sprang 
down and helped her out. 

" Look at the new moon," said Elly, looking 
up smiling. 

" Never mind the new moon. Come, Elly." 
said Dampier. And so they passed on into the 
theatre. 

Dampier was dreading recognition. He had 
a feeling that they would be sure to come against 
some one. Elly feared no one. When the play 
began she sat entranced, thrilling with interest, 
carried away. Faust was the piece which they 
were representing; and as each scene was played 
before her, as one change after another came 
over the piece, she was lost more and more in 
wonder. If she looked up tor an instant it was 
to see John Dampier's familiar face oppt)site ; 
and then outside the box, with its little curtain, 
great glittering theatre-lights, crystals reflecting 
the glitter, gilding, and silken drapery ; eveiy- 
where hundreds of people, silent, and breathless 
too, with interest, with excitement. The music 
plays, the scene shifts and changes, melting into 
fresh combinations. Here is Faust. Listen to 
him as he laments his wasted life. Of what use 
is wisdom ? What does he care for knowledge ? 
A lonely man without one heart to love, onecrea- 
ture to cherish him. Has he not willfully wasted 
the best years of his life ? he cries, in a passion 
of rage and indignation — M-asted them in the 
pursuit of arid science, of fruitless learning? 
Will these tend him in his old age, soothe his 
last hours, be to him wife, and children, and 
household, and holy home ties? Will these 
stand by his bedside, and close his weary, aching 
eyes, and follow him to his grave in the church- 
yard ? 

Eaust's sad complaint went straight to the 
heart of his hearers. The church-bell was ring- 
ing up the street. Fathers, motliers, and chil- 
dren were wending their way obedient to its call. 
And the poor desolate old man burst into pas- 
sionate and hopeless lamentation. 

It was all so real to Elly that she almost be- 
gan to cry herself. She was so carried away by 
the play, by this history of Faust and of Margaret, 
that it was in vain Dampier begged her to be 
careful, to sit back in the shade of the curtain, 
and not to lean forward too eagerly. She would 
draw back for a minute or two, and then by de- 
grees advance her pretty breathless head, turn- 
ing to him every now and then. It was like a 
dream to her. Like a fiice in a dream, too, did 
she presently recognize the face of De Vaux, her 
former admirer, oi)posite, in one of the boxes. 
But Margaret was coming into the chapel witli 
her young companions, and Elly was too much 



25G 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



interested to think of what he would think of 
lier. Just at that moment it was Margaret who 
seemed to her to be the important person in the 
world. 

De Vaux was of a different opinion : lie looked 
towards tliem once or twice, and at the end of 
the second act Uampier saw him get up and 
leave his seat. Sir John was provoked and an- 
noyed beyond measure. He did not want him, 
De Vaux, least of all people in the world. Every 
moment he felt as he had never felt before — 
how wrong it was to have brought Elly, whom 
he was so fond of, into such a situation. For a 
moment he was undecided, and then*lie rose, 
biting his lips, and opened the door of the box, 
hoping to intercept him ; but there was his Me- 
phistopheles, as ill-luck would have it, standing 
at the door ready to come in. 

" I thought I could not be mistaken," De 
Vaux began, with a smirk, bowing, and looking 
significantly from one to the other. "Did you 
see me in the gallery of the Louvi'e the other 
day?" 

Elly blushed up very red, and Dampier mut- 
tered an oath as he caught sight of the other 
man's face. He was smiling A'cry disagreeably. 
John glanced a second time, hesitated, and then 
said, suddenly and abruptly : " No, you are not 
mistaken. This is Miss Gilmour, my fiancee, 
M. de Vaux. I dare say you are surprised that 
I should have brought her to the play. It is the 
custom in our country." He did not dare look 
at Elly as he spoke. Had he known Avhat else 
to say he \vould have said it. 

De Vaux was quite satisfied, and instantly 
assumed a serious and important manner. The 
English miss was to him the most extraordinary 
being in creation, and he would believe any 
thing you liked to tell him of her. He was pre- 
pared to sit down in the vacant chair by Eliza- 
beth, and make himself agreeable to her. 

The English miss was scarcely aware of his 
existence. Faust, Margaret, had been the whole 
world to her a minute ago. Where was she 
now? .... where were they ? . . . . Was she 
the actress ? and were they the spectators look- 
ing on? ... . Was that the Truth which he 
had spoken ? Did he mean it ? Was there 
such wonderful, wonderful happiness in store 
for a poor little wretch like herself? Ah ! 
could it be — could it be true? Her whole 
soul shone in her trembling eyes, as she looked 
up for one instant, and upturned her flashing, 
speaking, beaming i-Ace. Dampier was very 
pale, and was looking vacantly at the stage. 
Margaret was weeping, for her troubles had 
begun. Mcphistopheles was laughing, and De 
Vaux chatting on in an agreeable manner with 
his hat between his knees. After some time, 
he discovered that they were not paying atten- 
tion to one single word he was saying ; upon 
which he rose in an empress^ manner, wished 
tliem good-bye politely, and went away very well 
pleased with his own good - breeding. And 
then, when he was gone, when the door was 
shut, when they were alone together, there was 



a silence, and Elly leaned her head against the 
side of the box ; she was trembling so that she 
could not sit up. And Dampier, looking white 
and gray in the face somehow, said, in an odd, 
harsh voice : — 

' ' Elly, you must not mind what I was obliged 
to say just now. You see, my dear child, that it 
doesn't do. I ought never to have brought you, 
and I could think of no better way to get out of 
my scrape than to tell him that lie." 

" It was — it was a lie ?" repeated Elly, slow- 
ly raising herself upright. 

" What could I do?" Sir John continued, very 
nervously and exceedingly agitated. "Elly, my 
dear little girl, I could not let him think you 
were out upon an unauthorized escapade. We 
all know how it is, but he does not. You must, 
you do forgive me — only say you do." 

" And it is not true?" said Elly, once more, 
in a bewildered piteous way. 

"I — I belong to Lffititia. It was settled be- 
fore we came abroad," faltered Dampier ; and 
he just looked at her once, and then he turned 
away. And the light was gone out of her face ; 
all the sparkle, the glitter, the amazement of 
happiness — just as this shining theatre, now- 
full of life, of light, of excitement, would be in 
a few hours black, ghastly, and void. John 
Dampier did not dare to look at her again — ho 
hesitated, he was picking and choosing the 
words which should be least cruel, least insult- 
ing; and while he was still choking and fum- 
bling, he heard a noise outside, a whispering, as 
the door flew open. Elly looked up and gave 
a little low plaintive cry, and two darkling, 
frowning men in black coats came into the box. 

They were the Pasteurs Boulot and Tour- 
neur. 

Who cares to witness, who cares to read, who 
cares to describe, scenes such as these ? Re- 
proach, condemnation, righteous wrath and in- 
dignation, and then one crushed, bewildered, al- 
most desperate little heart. 

She was hurried out into the night air. She 
had time to say good-bye, not one other word. 
He had not stretched out a hand to save her. 
The play was going on, all the peojile were sit- 
ting in their places, one or two looked up as 
she passed by the open doors. Then they came 
out into the street ; the stars were all gone, the 
night was black with clouds, and a heavy rain 
was pouring down upon the earth. The drops 
fell wet upon her bare, uncovered head. "Go 
under shelter," said the Pasteur Boulot ; but she 
paid no heed, and in a minute a cab came uj), 
the two men clasped each other's hands in the 
peculiar silent way to which they were used. 
Boulot walked away. And Elly found herself 
alone, inside the damp vehicle, driving over the 
stones. Her stepfather had got upon the box : 
he was in a fury of indignation, so that he could 
not trust himself to be with her. 

His indignation was not what she most feared. 
Another torturing doubt filled her whole heart. 
Her agony of hopelessness was almost unendura- 
ble : she was chilled through and through, but 



THE STOKY OF ELIZABETH. 



257 



she did not heed it — and faint, and sick, and 
wearied, but too unhappy to care. Uniiappy is 
liardly the word — bewilderment, a sort of crush- 
ed dull misery, would better describe her state. 
She felt little remorse : she had done wrong, 
but not very wrong, she thought. She sat mo- 
tionless in the corner of the jolting cab, with 
the rain beating in at the open window, as they 
travelled through the black night and the splash- 
ing streets. 

By what unlucky chance had M. Boulot been 
returning home along the Boulevards about 
half-past seven, at the very moment when Elly, 
jumping from the carriage, stopped to look up 
at the little new moon? He, poor man, could 
hardly believe his eyes. He did not believe 
them, and went home wondering, and puzzling, 
and asking himself if that audacious girl could 
be so utterly lost as to set her foot in that hor- 
rible den of iniquity. Ah ! it was impossible ; 
it was some one strangely like her. She could 
not be so lost, so perverted. But the chances 
were still against Elly ; for when he reached the 
modest little apartment where he lived, his maid- 
servant told him that M. Tourneur had been 
there some time, and was waiting to see him. 
And there in the study, reading by the light of 
the green lamp, sat Tourneur, with his low- 
crowned hat lying on the tal^^. He had come 
up on some business connected with an ap- 
pointment he wanted to obtain for Antho- 
ny. His wife was to follow him next day, he 
said, and then he and Boulot fell to talking 
over their affairs and Anthony's prospects and 
chances. 

"Poor Anthony, he has been sorely tried and 
proved of late," said his father. "Elizabeth 
will never make him happy." 

" Never — never 1" cried Boulot. " Elizabeth ! 
— she ! — the last person in the world a pastor 
ought to think of as a wife !" 

"If she were more like her mother," said 
Tourneur. 

" Ah ! that would be different," said Boulot ; 
"but the girl causes me deep anxiety, my 
friend. Hers is, I fear, an unconverted spirit. 
Her heart is of this world ; she requires much 
earnest teaching. Did you take her to Fon- 
tainebleau with you?" • 

" She would not come," said Tourneur ; " she 
is at home with my sister, Madame Jacob ; or 
rather by herself, for my sister went away a day 
or two ago." 

"Tourneur, you do not do wisely to leave 
that girl alone; she is not to be trusted," said 
the other, suddenly remembering all his former 
doubts. And so, when Tourneur asked what he 
meant, he told him what he had seen. The 
mere suspicion was a blow for our simple-mind- 
ed pasteur. He loved Elly ; with all her way- 
wardness, there was a look in her eyes which 
nobody could resist. In his heart of hearts he 
liked her better for a daughter-in-law than any 
one of the decorous young wonien wlio were in 
tlie habit of coming to be catechised by him. 
But to think that she had deceived him, to think 
K 



that she had forgotten herself so far, furgotten 
his teaching, his wishes, his firm convictions, 
sinned so outrageously ! Ah, it was too much ; 
it was impossible, it was unpardonable. He 
fired up, and in an agitated voice said it could 
not be ; that he knew her to be incapable of such 
horrible conduct, and then, seizing his hat, he 
rushed down stairs and called a carriage which 
happened to be passing l)y. 

" Where are you going ?" asked Boulot, who 
had followed him, somewhat alarmed. 

•*' I am going home, to see that she is there. 
Safe in her room, and sheltered under her ])a- 
rcnts' roof, I humbly pray. Far away from the 
snares and dangers and temptations of the 
world. " 

Alas ! poor Elly was not at home, peaceful- 
ly resting or reading by the lamplight. Fran- 
9oise, to be sure, told them she was in bed, and 
Tourneur went hopefully to her door and knock- 
ed : 

"Elly," he cried, " mon enfant! etes-vous 
la, ma fille? Repondez, Elizabeth !" and he 
shook the door in his agitation. 

Old Fran^oise was standing by, holding the 
candle, Boulot was leaning against the wall. 
But there came no answer. The silence struck 
chill. Tourneur's face was very pale, his lijjs 
were drawn, and his eyes gleamed as he raised 
his head. He went away for a minute and came 
back with a little tool ; it did not take long to 
force back the lock — the door flew open, and 
there was the empty room all in disorder ! In 
silence truly, but emptiness is not peace always, 
silence is not tranquillity ; a horrible dread and 
terror came over poor Tourneur ; Fran^oise's 
hand, holding the light, began to tremble guilt- 
ily. Boulot was dreadfully shocked : 

"My poor friend ! my poor friend I" he be- 
gan. 

Tourneur put his hand to his head : 

" How has this come to pass — am I to blame?" 
said he. " Oh ! unhappy girl, what has she 
done ? — how has she brought this disgrace upon 
us?" and he fell on his knees by the bedside, 
and buried his head in the clothes — kneeling 
there praying for Elly where she had so often 
knelt and poured out all her sad heart 

Elly, at that minute — sitting in the little box, 
wondering, delighted, thrilling with interest, 
with pleasure — did not guess what a strange 
scene was taking place in her own room at 
home ; she did not once think of what trouble, 
what grief, she was causing to others, and to 
herself, poor child, most of all. Only a few 
minutes more — all the music would cease ab- 
ruptly for her ; all the lights go out ; all the 
sweetness turn to gall an'd to bitterness. Near- 
er and nearer comes the sad hour, the cruel 
awakening ; dream on still for a few happy min- 
utes, poor Elly! — nearer and nearer come these 
two angry silent men, in their black, sombre 
clothes — nearer and nearer the cruel spoken 
word which will chill, crush, and destroy. 
Elizabeth's dreams lasted a little longer, and 
then she awoke at last. 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Not a flower, not a' flower sweet, 

On my black coffin let there be strown ; 
Not a friend, not a friend greet 

My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown. 
A thousand, thousand sighs to save. 

Lay me, oh ! whei-e 
Sad true lover never find my grave, 

To weep there. 

It was on the evening of the Monday after 
that Miss Dampier arrived in Paris, with her 
bonnet-box, her knitting, her carpet-bag. She 
drove to Meurice's, and hired a room, and then 
she asked the servants there who knew him 
whether Sir John Dampier was still staying in 
the house. They said he had left the place 
some time before, but that he had called twice 
that day to ask if she had arrived. And then 
Miss Dampier, who always liked to make her- 
self comfortable and at home, went up to her 
room, had the window opened, light bi'ought, 
and ordered some tea. She was sitting at the 
table in her cap, in her comfortable black gown, 
with her knitting, her writing-desk, her books, 
all set out about the room. She was pouring 
out tea for herself, and looking as much at home 
as if she had lived there for months, when the 
door opened, and her nephew walked in. She 
was delighted to see him. 

" My dear Jack, how good of you to come !" 
said the old lady, looking up at him, and hold- 
ing out her hand. ' ' But you don't look well. 
You have been sitting up late and racketing. 
Will you have some tea to refresh you ? I will 
treat you to any thing you like." 

" Ah, don't iftake jokes," said Dampier. "I 
.Tm very unhappy. Look here, I have got into 
the most horrible scrape ; and not myself only." 
And the room shook, and the tea-table rattled, 
ns he went pacing up and down the room with 
heavy footsteps. " I want to behave like a gen- 
tleman, and I wake up one morning to find my- 
self a scoundrel. Do you see ?" 

" Tell me.about it, my dear," said Miss Dam- 
pier, quietly. 

And then poor John burst out and told all 
his story, confounding himself, and stamping, 
flinging himself about into one chair after an- 
other. "I meant no harm," he said. "I 
wanted to give her a little pleasure, and this is 
the end. I think I have broken her heart, and 
those pasteurs have murdered her by this time. 
They won't let me see her; Tourneur almost 
ordered me out of the house. Aunt Jean, do 
say something ; do have an opinion." 

"I wish your cousin was here," said Miss 
Dampier ; " he is the parson of the family, and 
bound to give us all good advice ; let me write 
to him. Jack. I have a certain reliance on 
Will's good sense." 

"I won't have Will interfering with my af- 
fairs," cried the other testily. " And you — you 
will not help me, I see ?" 

"I will go and see Elizabeth," said Miss 
Dampier, " to-night, if you like. I am very, 
very sorry for her, and for you too, John. What 



more can I say ? Come again in an hour, and 
I will tell you what I think." 

So Miss Dampier was as good as her word, 
and set off on her pilgrimage, and drove along 
the lighted streets, and then past the cab-stand 
and the hospital to the house with the shuttered 
windows. Her own heart was very sad as she 
got out of the carriage and rang at the bell. 
But looking up by chance, she just saw a gleam 
of light which came from one of the upper 
windows and played upon the wall. She took 
this as a good omen, and said to herself that 
all would be well. Do you believe in omens ? 
The light came from a room where Elly was ly- 
ing asleep, and dreaming gently — calm, satisfied, 
happy for once, heedless of the troubles and 
turmoils and anxieties of the waking people all 
round about her. She looked very pale, her 
hands were loosely clasped, the light was in the 
window, flickering ; and meanwhile, beneath 
the window, in the street, Miss Dampier stood 
waiting under the stars. She did not know 
that Elly saw her in her dim dreams, and some- 
how fancied that she was near. 

The door opened at last. How black the 
court-yard looked behind it I "What do you 
want?" said Clementine, in a hiss. "Who is 
it?" 

" I want to \iw(m how Miss Gilmour is," said 
Miss Dampier, quite humbly, " and to see Mon- 
sieur or Madame Tourneur." 

" Vousetes Madame Dampierre," said Clem- 
entine. "Madame est occupe'e. Elle ne re- 
9oit pas." 

" When will she be disengaged ?" said the 
old lady. 

"71/aybt.'" said Clementine, shrugging her 
shoulders, " that I can not tell you. She has 
desired me to say that she does not wish to see 
any body." And the door was shut with a 
bang. Elly woke up, startled from her sleep ; 
and old Eran^oise happening to come into the 
room, carried the candle away. 

Miss Dampier went home very sad and 
alarmed, she scarcely knew why. She Avrote a 
tender little letter to Elly next day. It was : — 

" Dear Child, — You must let me come and 
see you. We are very- unhappy, John and I, to 
think that his imprudence has caused you such 
trouble. He does not know how to beg you to 
forgive him — you and M. Tourneur and your 
mother. He should have known better ; he has 
been unpardonably thoughtless, but he is nearly 
broken-hearted about it. He has been engaged 
to La;titia for three or four months, and you 
know how long she has loved him. Dearest 
Elly, you must let me come and see you, and 
per]ia})s one day you may be trusted to the care 
of an old woman, and you will come home with 
me for a time, and brighten my lonely little 
house. Your afliectionate old friend, 

"Jean Dampiek." 

But to this there came no answer. Miss 
Dampier went again and could not get in. She 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



250 



wrote to Madame Tourneur, who sent back the ! 
letter unopened. John Dampier walked about, 
pale and haggard and remorseful. 

One evening he and his aunt were dining in 
the public room of the hotel, and talking over 
this affair, when the waiter came and told them 
that a gentleman wanted to speak to Miss Dam- 
pier, and the old lady got up and went out of 
the room. She came back in an instant, look- 
ing very agitated. "John!" she said— "Oh 
John !" and then began to cry. She could not 
speak for a minute, while he, quite frightened 
for his part, hastily went to the door. A tall 
young man was standing there, Avrapped in a 
loose coat, who looked into his face and said : — 

"Are you Sir John Dampier? My sister 
Elizabeth would like to see you again. I have 
come for you." 

" Your sister Elizabeth !" said Dampier, look- 
ing surprised. 

The other man's face changed as he spoke 
again. " I am Anthony Tourneur ; I have come 
to fetch you, because it is her wish, and she is 
dying, we feai'." 

The two men stood looking at one another 
for one horrible moment, then Dampier slowly 
turned his face round to the wall. In that one 
instant all that cruel weiglit which had almost 
crushed poor Elly to death came and fell upon 
his broad shoulders, better able, in truth, to bear 
it, than she had ever been. 

He looked up at last. " Have I done this ?" 
said he to Tourneur, in a sort of hoarse whisper. 
" I meant for the best." 

"I don't know what you have done," said 
the other, very sadly. " Life and death are 
not in your hands or mine. Let us pray that 
our mistakes may be forgiven us. Are you 
ready now ?" 

Elly's visions had come to an end. The 
hour seemed to be very near when she should 
awake from the dream of life. Dim figures of 
her mother, her stepfather, of old Fran9oise, 
came and stood by her bedside. But how far 
off they appeared ! how distant their voices 
sounded! Old Fran9oise came into her room 
the morning after Elly had been brought home, 
with some message from Tourneur, desiring her 
to come down stairs and speak to him : he had 
been lying awake all night, thinking what he 
should say to her, praying for her, imploring 
grace, so that he should be allowed to touch the 
rebellious spirit, to point out all its errors, to 
bring it to the light. And meanwhile, Elly, 
the rebellious spirit, sat by her bedside in a sort 
of bewildered misery. She scarcely told herself 
why she was so unhappy. She wondered a lit- 
tle that there was agony so great to be endured ; 
she had never conceived its existence befoi'e. 
Was lie gone forever — was it Lostitia whom he 
cared for ? " You know that I belong to Liieti- 
tia," he had said. How could it be ? all heaven 
and earth would cry out against it. LiBtitia — 
Laetitia, who cared so little, who was so pale, 
and so cold, and so indifferent? How could he 
speak such cruel words? Oh shame, shame! 



that she should be so made to suffer. ' ' A poor 
little thing like me," said Elly, "lonely and 
friendless and heart-broken." The pang was so 
sharp that it seemed to her like physical pain, 
and she moaned, and winced, and shivered 
under it — was it she herself or another person 
that was here in the darkness ? She was cold, 
too, and yet burning with thirst ; she groped 
her way to the jug, and poured out a little water, 
and drank with eager gulps. Then she began 
to take off her damp clothes ; but it tired her, 
and she forgot to go on ; she dropped her cloak 
upon the floor and flung herself upon the bed, 
with a passionate outcry. Her mouth was dry 
and parched, her throat was burning, her hands 
were burning too. In the darkness she seemed 
to see his face and La^titia's glaring at her, and 
she turned sick and giddy at the sight; pres- 
ently, not theirs only, but a hundred others — 
Tourneur's, Boulot's, Faust's, and Mephistoph- 
eles's — crowding upon her and glaring fu- 
riously. She fell into a short, uneasy sleep 
once, and woke up with a moan as the hospital 
clock struck three. The moon was shining 
into her room, ineffably gray, chill, and silent, 
and as she woke, a horror, a terror, came over 
her — her heart scarcely beat ; she seemed to be 
sinking and dying away. She thought with a 
thrill that her last hour was come ; the terror 
seemed to bear down upon her, nearer and 
closer and irresistible — and then she must have 
fallen back senseless upon her bed. And so 
when Fran9oise came with a message in the 
morning, which was intended to frighten the 
rebellious spirit into submission, she found it 
gone, safe, far away from reproach, from angry 
chiding, and the poor little body lying lifeless, 
burnt with fierce fever, and racked with dull 
pain. All that day Elly was scarcely sensible, 
lying in a sort of stupor. Fran9oise, with ten- 
der hands, undressed her and laid her within 
the sheets ; Tourneur came and stood by the 
poor child's bedside. He had brought a doctor, 
who was bending over her. 

" It is a sort of nervous fever," said the doc- 
tor, "and I fear that there is some inward in- 
flammation as well ; she is very ill. This must 
have been impending for some time past." 

Tourneur stood with clasped hands and a 
! heavy heart, watching the changes as they 
I passed over the poor little face. Who was to 
blame in this ? He had not spoken one word 
to her the night before. Was it grief? was it 
repentance? Ah me! Elly was dumb now, 
and could not answer. All his wrath was 
turned against Dampier ; for Elly he only felt 
the tenderest concern. But he was too unhappy 
I just now to think of his anger. He went for 
I Madame Tourneur, who came back and set to 
j work to nurse her daughter ; but she was fright- 
ened and agitated, and seemed scarcely to know 
what she was about. On the morning of the 
second day, contrary to the doctor's expecta- 
tions, Elly recovered her consciousness ; on the 
third day slie was better. And when Tourneur 
came into the room, she said to him with one of 



2G0 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



her old pretty, sad smiles: "You are very an- j 
'gry with me, are you not? You think I ought 
not to have gone to the play with John Dam- [ 
pier?" j 

" Ah, my child," said Tourneur, with a long- 
drawn, shivering sigh, "I am too anxious to be 
angry." i 

"Did he promise to marry you, Elly?"said 1 
Madame Tourneur, who was sitting by her bed- 
side. She was looking so eagerly for an answer 
that she did not see her husband's look of re- 
proach. 

" How could he ?" said Elly, simply. " He 
is going to marry Lsetitia." 

"Tell me, my child," said Tourneur, gently 
taking her hand, "how often did you go with 
him?" 

"Three times," Elly answered, faintly. 
"Once to the Bois, and once to the Louvre, 
and then that last time," and slie gasped for 
breath. Tourneur did not answer, but bent 
down gently and kissed her forehead. 

It was on that very day that Dampier called. 
Elly seemed somehow to know that he was in 
the house. She got excited, and began to wan- 
der, and to call him by his name. Tourneur 
heard her, and turned \)a.\e, and set his teeth as 
he went down to speak to Sir John. In the 
evening the girl was better, and Anthony ar- 
rived from the south. And I think it was on 
the fifth day that Elly told Anthony that she 
wanted to see Dampier once again. 

"You can guess how it has been," she said, 
" and I love him still, but not as I did. An- 
thony, is it not strange? Perhaps one is self- 
ish when one is dying. But I want to see him 
— just once again. Every thing is so changed. 
I can not understand why I have been so un- 
happy all this time. Anthony, I have wasted 
all my life ; I have made nobody happy — not 
even you." 

"You have made me love you, and that has 
been my happiness," said Anthony. "I have 
been very unhappy too ; but I thank Heaven for 
having known you, Elly." 

Elly thought that slie had but a little time 
left. What was there in the solemn nearness 
of death that had changed her so greatly ? She 
had no terror: she was ready to lie down and 
go to sleep like a tired child in its mother's 
arms. Worldly! we call some folks worldly, 
and truly they have lived for to-day and cared 
for to-day ; but for them, as for us, the great 
to-morrow comes, and then they cease to be 
worldly — is it not so? Who shall say that 
such and such a life is wasted, is purposeless? 
tliat such and such minds are narrow, are mean, 
are earthly ? The day comes, dawning freshly 
and stilly, like any other day in all the year, 
when the secret of their life is ended, and the 
great sanctification of Death is tlieirs. 

Boulot came to sec Tourneur, over whom he 
had great influence, and insisted upon being 
sliown to Elizabeth's bedside. She put out her 
hind and said, "How d'ye do. Monsieur Bou- 
lot?" very sweetly, but when he had talked to 



her for some little time, she stopped him and 
said : " You can not know how near these things 
seem, and how much more great and awful and 
real they are, wlien you are lying here like me, 
tlian when you are standing by another person's 
sick-bed. Nobody can speak of them to me as 
they themselves speak to me." She said it so 
simply, with so little intention of offense, that 
Boulot stopped in tiie midst of his little sermon, 
and said farewell quite kindly and gently. And 
then, not long after he was gone, Anthony came 
back with the Dampiers. 

They walked up the wooden stairs with hearts 
that ached sorely enough. Miss Dampier was 
calm and composed again; she had stood by 
many a death-bed — she was expecting to go her- 
self before very long — but John was quite un- 
nerved. Little Elly, whom he had pitied and 
looked down upon and patronized, was she to 
be to him from this minute a terror, a lifelong 
regret and remorse ? — he could hardly summon 
courage to walk into the room when the door 
was opened and Anthony silently motioned him 
to pass through it. 

And yet there was nothing very dreadful. 
A pale, sweet face lying on the little white bed ; 
the gentle eyes, whose look he knew so well, 
turned expectantly towards him ; a cup with 
some flowers ; a little water in a glass by the 
bedside ; an open window ; the sun setting be- 
hind the pojdar-trees. 

Old Fran^oise was sitting in the window, sew- 
ing ; tlie birds were twittering outside. John 
1 Dampier thought it strange that death should 
: come in this familiar guise — tranquilly, with 
the sunset, the rustling leaves of the trees, the 
j scent of the geraniums in the court below, the 
' cackle of the hens, the stitching of a needle — 
he almost envied Elly, lying resting at the end 
of her journey: Elly, no longer the silly little 
! girl he had laughed at, chidcd, and played with 
j — she was wise now, in his eyes. 

I She could not talk much, but what she said 
was in her own voice and in her old manner 
— "You kind people, to come and see me," 
she said, and beckoned to them to approach 
nearer. 

Miss Dampier gave her nephew a warning 
touch ; she saw how agitated lie was, and was 
afraid that he would disturb Elizabeth. But 
what would he not have done for her? He 
controlled himself, and spoke quietly, in a low 
voice : — 

"I am very grateful to you, dear Elly, for 
. sending for me. I was longing to hear about 
you. I want to ask you to forgive nie for the ill 

I I have done you. I want to tell you just once 
! that I meant no harm, only it was such a pleas- 
! ure to myself that I persuaded myself it was 

right. I know you will forgive me. All my 
j life I will bless you." And his head fell as he 
, spoke. 

I "What have I to forgive?" faltered Elly. 
"It seems so long ago! — Faust and Margaret, 
and those pleasant drives. Am I to forgive you 
because I loved vou? That was a sort of mad- 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



2G1 



ness ; but it is gone. I love you still, dear 
John, but differently. I am not mad now, but 
in my senses. If I get well, how changed it 
will be ! if I die — " 

If she died? Dampier, hating himself all 
the while, thought, with a chill pang, that here 
would be a horrible solution to all his perplexi- 
ties. Perhaps Elly gnessed something of what 
was passing in his mind, for she gave him her 
hand once more, and faltered : — 

" My love to Lastitia," and, as she spoke, she 
raised "her eyes, with the old familiar look in 
them. 

It was more than he could bear ; he stooped 
and kissed her frail, burning fingers, and then, 
with scorched, quivering lips, turned aside and 
went softly.out of the room. Anthony and Ma- 
dame Tourneur were standing outside, and as 
Dampier passed she looked at him piteously, 
and her lips trembled too, but she did not speak. 
It seemed to him somehow — only he was think- 
ing of other things — as if Elly's good and bad 
angels were waiting there. He himself passed 
on with a hanging head ; what could he say to 
justify himself? — his sorrow was too real to be 
measured out into words, his penitence gi-eater 
almost than the offense had been. Even Tour- 
neur, whom he met in the court-yard, almost 
forgave him as he glanced at the stricken foce 
that was passing out of his house into the 
street. 

After he was gone, Elly began to wander. 
Eran^oise, who had never taken such a bad view 
of Elly's condition as the others, and who strong- 
ly disapproved of all this leave-taking, told Miss 
Uampier that if they wanted to kill her outright, 
they need only let in all Paris to stare at her, as 
they had been doing for the last two days ; and 
Miss Dampier, meekly taking the hint, rose in 
her turn to go. But Elly, from her bed, knew 
that she was about to leave her, and cried out 
piteously, and stretched out her hands, and 
clutched at her gown. 

"Faut rester," whispered Fran^oise. 

"I mean to stay," said Miss Dampier, after 
a moment's deliberation, sitting down at the 
bedside and untying her bonnet. 

Under her bonnet she wore a little prim cap, 
v>rith loops of gray ribbon ; out of her pocket 
she pulled her knitting and a pair of mittens. 
She folded up her mantlet and put it away ; 
slie signed to Francjoise to leave her in charge. 
When Tourneur came in he found her installed, 
and as much at home as if she were there by 
rights. Elly wished it, she told him, and she 
would stay were ten pasteurs opposed to it. 

Tourneur reluctantly consented at last, much 
against his will. It seemed to him that her 
motlier ought to be Elly's best nurse, but Madame 
Tourneur eagerly implored him to let Miss 
Dampier remain ; she seemed strangely seared 
and helpless, and changed and odd. "Oh, if 
you will only make her well!" said she to the 
old Scotchwoman. 

"How can I make her well?" Miss Dam- 
pier answered. "I will try and keep her quiet. 



that is the chief thing ; and if M. Tourneur will 
let me, I should like to send for my old friend. 
Dr. Berlin." 

And her persistency overcame Tourneur's be- 
wildered objections ; her quiet good sense and 
determination carried the day. Doctor Berlin 
came, and the first doctor went off in a huff, and 
Elly lay tossing on her bed. What a weary 
rack it was to her, that little white bed ! There 
she lay scorched and burning — consumed by a 
fierce fire. There she lay through the long days 
and the nights, as they followed one by one, wait- 
ing to know the end. Not one of them dared think 
what that end might be. Doctor Berlin him- 
self could not tell how this queer illness might 
turn ; such fevers were sometimes caused by 
mental disquietude, he said. Of infection there 
was no fear ; he came day after day, and stood 
pitifully by the bedside. He had seen her once 
before in her brilliance and health ; he had nev- 
er cared for her as he did now that she was ly- 
ing prostrate and helpless in their hands. 

Madame Jacob had carried off her children 
at the first alarm of fever ; the house was kept 
darkened and cool and quiet ; and patient Miss 
Dampier sat waiting in the big chair for good 
or for ill fortune. Sometimes of an evening 
she would creep down stairs and meet her neph- 
ew in the street outside and bring him news. 

And besides John, there was poor Anthony 
wandering about the house, wretched, anxious, 
and yet resigned. Often, as a boy, he had fear- 
ed death ; the stern tenets to which he belong- 
ed made him subject to its terrors, but now it 
seemed to him so simple a thing to die, that he 
wondered at his own past fears. Elly thought 
it a simple thing to die, but of this fever she was 
weary — of this cruel pain and thirst and misery ; 
she would moan a little, utter a few complain- 
ing words, and wander off into delirium again. 
She had been worse than usual one evening, 
the fever higher. It was a bad account that 
Miss Dampier had to give the doctor when he 
came, to the anxious people waiting for news. 
All night long Elly's kind nurse sat patiently in 
the big arm-chair, knitting, as was her way, or 
sometimes letting the needles fall into her lap, 
and sitting still with clasped hands and a wist- 
ful heart. The clocks of the city struck the 
dark hours as they passed— were these Elly's 
last upon earth? Jean Dampier sadly wonder- 
ed. The stars set behind the poplar-trees, a 
night -breeze came shivering now and then 
through the open window. The night did not 
appear so very long : it seemed hastening by, 
dark and silent, relentless to the wearied nurse ; 
for presently, before she knew it almost, it seem- 
ed as if the dawn had begun : and somehow, as 
she was watching still, she fell asleep for a little. 
While she slept the shadows began to tremble 
and fade, and fly hither and thither in the death- 
like silence of the early morning, and when she 
woke it was with a start and a chill terror, 
coming she knew not whence. She saw that 
the room was gray, and black no longer. Her 
heart began to beat, and with a terrified glance 



263 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



she looked round at the bed where Elly was 
lying. 

She looked once, and then again, and then 
suddenly her trembling hands were clasped in 
Intmblest thanksgiving, and tlie gray head bent 
lower and lower. 

There was nothing to fear any more. Elly 
was sleeping quietly on her pillow, the fiery 
spots had faded out of her cheeks, her skin look- 
ed fresh and moist, the fever had left her. 
Death had not yet laid his cold hand on the 
poor little prey, he had not come while the nurse 
was sleeping — he had not called her as yet. I 
speak in this way from long habit and foolish- 
ness. For, in truth, had he come, would it have 
been so sad, would it have been so hard a fate — 
would it have been Death with his skeleton's 
head, and his theatrical grave-clothes, and his 
scythe, and Lis hour-glass ? Would it have 
been this, or simply the great law of Nature 
working peacefully in its course — only the seed 
falling into the ground, only the decree of that 
same merciful Power which sent us into the 
world? — us men and women, wlio are glad to 
exist, and grateful for our OAvn creation, into a 
world where wo love to tarry for a while ? 

Jean Dampier, sitting there in the dawning, 
thought something of all this, and yet how could 
she help acknowledging the mercy which spared 
her and hers the pang of having fatally injured 
this poor little Elly, whom she had learned to 
love with all her tender old heart ? It seemed 
a deliverance, a blessing a hundred times beyond 
their deserts. 

She had been prepared for the worst, and yet 
she had shrunk with terror from the chastise- 
ment. Now, in this first moment of relief — now 
that, after all, Elly was, perhaps, given back to 
them, to youth, to life — she felt as if she could 
have borne the blow better than she had ever 
dared to hope. The sun rose, the birds chirped 
freshly among the branches, the chill morning 
spread over the city. Sleepers began to stir, 
and to awake to their daily cares, to their busy 
life. Elizabeth's life, too, began anew from this 
hour. 

Some one said to me just now that we can 
best make others happy by the mere fact of our 
own existence ; as she got well day by day, Elly 
found that it was so. How had she deserved so 
much of those about her? she often wondered 
to herself. A hinderance, a trouble, a vexation 
to them was all she had ever been ; and yet as 
one by one they came to greet her, she felt that 
they were glad. Anthony's ej^es were full of 
tears ; Tourneur closed his for an instant, as he 
uttered a silent thanksgiving — she herself did 
not know how to thank them all. 

And here, perhaps, my story ought to end, 
but in truth it is not finished, though I should 
cease to write it down, and it goes on and on as 
the years go by. 



CHAFl'ER VIII. 

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave 
Yon orange sunset, waning slow 

From fringes of the faded eve. 
O happy planet, eastward go, 
Till over thy dark shoulder glow 

Thy silver sister-world, and rise 

To glass herself in dewy eyes, 

That watch nie from the glen below. 

And so she had left all behind, Elizabeth 
thought. Paris, the old house, mother, stepfa- 
ther, and pastcur, the court-yard, the fomiliar 
wearisome life, the dull days breaking one by 
one, John Dampier, her hopeless hopes, and her 
foolish fancies — she had left them all on the 
other side of the sea for a time, and come away 
with kind Miss Dampier. 

Here, in England, whither her good friend 
had brought her to get well, the air is damp 
with sea-breezes ; the atmosphere is not keen 
and exciting as it is abroad ; the sky is more 
often gray than blue ; it rarely dazzles and 
bewilders you with its brilliance ; there is hu- 
midity and vegetation, a certain placidity and 
denseness and moisture of which some people 
complain. To Elizabeth — nervous, eager, ex- 
citable — this qviiet green country, these autumn 
mists were new life. Day by day she gained 
strength, and flesh, and tone, and health, and 
good spirits. 

But it was only by slow degrees that this good 
change was effected ; weaknesses, faintnesses, re- 
lapses — who does not know the wearisome course 
of a long convalescence ? 

To-night, though she is by way of being a 
strong woman again, she feels as if she was a 
very, very old one, somehow, as she sits at the 
window of a great hotel looking out at the sun- 
set. It seems to her as if it was never to rise 
again. There it goes sinking, glorying over 
the sea, blazing yellow in the west. The place 
grows dark ; in the next room through the open 
door her white bed gleams chilly .; she shudders 
as she looks at it, and thinks of the death-bed 
from which she has scarce risen. There are 
hours, especially when ])eople are still weak and 
exhausted by sickness, when life seems unbear- 
able, when death appears terrible, and when 
the spirit is so weary that it seems as if no sleep 
could be deep enough to give it rest. "When 
I am dead," thought Elizabeth ; "ah me! my 
body will be at rest, but I myself, shall I have 
forgotten — do I want to forget ....?" 

Meanwhile Miss Dampier, wrapped in her 
gray cloak, is taking a brisk solitary little walk 
upon the wooden pier which Elly sees reflected 
black against the sea. Aunt Jean is serenely 
happy about her charge; delighted to have car- 
ried her ofl^ against all opposition ; determined 
that somehow or other she shall never go back ; 
that she shall be made happy one day. 

It is Ifite in the autumn. Tourists are flock- 
ing home ; a little jirocession of battered ladies 
and gentlemen carrying all sorts of bundles and 
bags and parcels disembarks every day ; and 
then another procession of ladies and gentlemen 
I goes to see them land. Any moment you may 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



263 



chance to encounter some wan sea-sick friend 
staggering along with the rest of the sufferers, 
who are more or less other people's friends. 
The waves wash up and down, painted yellow 
by the sunset. There is no wind, but it has 
been blowing hard for a day or two, and the sea 
is not yet calm. How pleasant it is, Miss Dam- 
pier thinks ; chill, fresh, wholesome. This good 
air is the very thing for Elly. Along the cliffs 
the old lady can see the people walking against 
the sky like little specks. There arc plenty of 
fishing-boats out and about. There is the west 
still blazing yellow, and then a long gray bank 
of clouds ; and witli a hiss and a shrill clamor 
here comes the tossing, dark-shadowed steamer 
across the black and golden water. All the 
passengers are crowding on deck and feebly 
gathering their belongings together; here the 
Frederic William comes close alongside, and 
as every body else rushes along the pier to in- 
spect the new-comers, good old Jean trots off" 
too, to see what is what. In a few minutes the 
passengers appear, slowly rising through a trap 
• like the ghost in the Corsican Brothers. 

First, a lilac gentleman, then a mouldy green 
gentleman (evidently a foreigner), then an or- 
ange lady. 

Then a ghostly blue gentleman, then a dead- 
ly white lady, then a pale lemon-colored gentle- 
man with a red nose. 

Then a stout ladj', black in the face, then a 
faltering lady's-maid, with a bandbox. 

Then a gentleman with an umbrella. 

Jean Dampier is in luck to-night, as, indeed, 
she deserves to be : a more kindly, tender-heart- 
ed, unselfish old woman does not exist — if that 
is a reason for being lucky — however, she has 
been my good friend for many a long year, and 
it is not to-day that I am going to begin to pay 
her compliments. 

I was saying she is in luck, and she finds a 
nephew among the passengers — it is the gentle- 
man with the umbrella ; and there they are, 
greeting one another in the most affectionate 
manner. 

The Nephew. — "Let me get my portmanteau, 
and then I will come and talk to you as much 
as you like." 

The Aunt. — " Never mind your portman- 
teau, the porter will look after it. Where have 
you been, Will ? Where do you come from ? 
I am at the ' Flag Hotel,' close by." 

The Nephew. — " So I hear." 

The Aunt. — " Who told you that ?" 

Tlie Nephew. — "A sour -faced woman at 
Paris. I asked for you at Meurice's, and they 
sent me to this Madame Tourneur. She told 
me all about you. What business is it of youi's 
to go about nursing mad girls ?" 

Aimt Jean. — "Elly is not mad. You have 
heard me talk of her a hundred times. I do 
believe I saved her life. Will ; it was my busi- 
ness, if any body's, to care for her. Her heart 
was nearly broken." 

The Nephew. — "John nearly broke her heart, 
did he ? I don't believe a word of it " (smiling 



very sweethf). " You are always running away 
with one idea after another, you silly old wom- 
an. Young ladies' hearts are made of india- 
rubber, and Lady Dampier says this one is an 
artful — designing — horrible — abominable — " 

Aunt Jean {sadli/). — "Elly nearly died, that 
is all. You are like all men. Will — " 

The Nephew (interrupting). — "Don't! Con- 
sider, I'm just out of the hands of the steward. 
Let me have something to eat before we enter 
into any sentimental discussion. Here (to a 
])orter), bring my portmanteau to the hotel. — 
Nonsense (to a flyman), what should I do with 
your carriage?" 

Will Dampier was a member of the Alpine 
Club, and went year by year to scramble his 
holiday away up and down mountain-sides. 
He was a clergyman, comfortably installed in a 
family living. He was something like his cous- 
in in appearance, but, to my mind, better look- 
ing, browner, broader, with bright blue eyes and 
a charming smile. He looked like a gentle- 
man. He wore a clerical waistcoat. He had 
been very much complimented upon his good 
sense; and he liked giving advice, and took 
pains about it, as he was anxious not to lose 
his reputation. Now and then, however, he did 
foolish things, but lie did them sensibly, which 
is a very diff'erent thing from doing sensible 
things foolishly. It seems to me that is just 
the diff"erence between men and women. 

Will was Miss Dampier's ideal of what a 
nephew should be. They walked back to the 
hotel together, chattering away very comfort- 
ably. He went into the coff"ee-room and order- 
ed his dinner, and then he came back to his 
aunt, who was walking on the lawn outside. 
Meanwhile the sun went on setting, the win- 
dows lighted up one by one. It was that com- 
fortable hour when people sit down in little 
friendly groups and break bread, and take tlieir 
ease, the business of the day being over. Will 
Dampier and his aunt took one or two turns 
along the gravel path facing the sea ; he had 
twenty minutes to wait, and he thought they 
might be well employed in giving good coun- 
sel. 

"It seems to me a very wild scheme of yours, 
caiTying off" this unruly young woman," lie be- 
gan ; "she will have to go home sooner or later. 
What good will you have done?" 

"I don't know, I'm sure," says Miss Dam- 
pier, meekly; "a holiday is good for us at all 
times. Haven't you enjoyed yours. Will ?" 

"I should rather think I had. You never 
saw any thing so pretty as Berne the other 
morning as I was coming away. I came homo 
by the Rhine, you know. I saw Aunt Dampier 
and Tishy for an hour or two." 

"And did you see John at Paris?" 

"No; he was down at V , staying with 

the M s. And now tell me about the young 

lady with the heart. Is she up stairs tearing 
her hair ? Aunt Dampier was furious." 

"So she had heard of it?" said Miss Dam- 
pier, thoughtfully. And then she added rather 



2Gi 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



sharply, "You can tell lier that the young lady 
is quite Retting over her fancy. In fact, John 
doesn't deserve that she should remember him. 
Now, listen, Will, I am going to tell you a 
story." And then, in her quiet, pleasant, old- 
fashioned way, she told him her version of all 
that had been happening. 

Will listened and laughed, and said, "You 
will think me a brute, but I agree with Aunt 
Dampier. Your young woman has behaved as 
badly as possible ; she has made a dead set at 
poor John, who is so vain that any woman can 
get him into her clutches." 

" What do you mean?" cries the aunt, quite 
angry. 

" If she had really cared for him, would she 
have forgotten all about him already ? I warn 
you, Aunt Jenny ; I don't approve of your hero- 
ine." 

" I must go and look after my heroine," says 
Miss Dampier, dryly. ' ' I dare say your dinner 
is ready." 

But Will Dampier, whose curiosity at all 
events was excited, followed his aunt up stairs 
and along the passage, and went in after her as 
she opened a door ; went into a dim chill room, 
with two wide-set windows, through which the 
last yellow streaks of the sunset were ftiding, 
and the fresh evening blast blew in with a gust 
as they entered. It was dark, and nothing could 
be seen distinctly, only something white seemed 
crouching in a chair, and as the door opened 
they heard a low sobbing sigh, which seemed to 
come out of the gloom ; and then it was all very 
silent. 

" Elly, my dear child," said Miss Dampier, 
"what is the matter?" 

There was no answer. 

" Why don't you speak?" said the kind old 
lady, groping about, and running up against 
chairs and tables. 

"Because I can't speak without crying," 
gasps Elly, beginning to cry. "And it's so 
ungrateful — " 

" You are tired, dear," says Aunt Jean, "and 
cold" — taking her hand; and then turning 
round and seeing that her nephew had come in 
with her, she said : " Ring the bell Will, and 
go to your dinner. If you will tell them down 
stairs to send up some tea directly I shall be 
obliged to you." William Dampier did as he 
was bid, and walked away considerably mollified 
towards poor Elly. " One is so apt to find 
fault with people," he was thinking. " And 
thei-e she was crying up stairs all the time, poor 
wretch." 

He could never bear to see a woman cry. 
His parishioners — the women, I mean — had 
found this out, and used to shed a great many 
tears when he came to see them. He had 
found them out — he knew that they bad found 
him out, and yet as sure as the apron-corner 
went up, the half-crown came out of the pocket. 

9.30. — lieadinfj Room, Flag Hotel, Boats- 
town. — Mr. William Dampier writing at a side- 
table to a married sister in India. Three old 



gentlemen come creaking in ; select limp news- 
papers and take their places. A young man 
who is going to town by the 10.30 train lies 
down on the sofa and falls asleep and snores 
gently. A soothing silence. Mr. Dampier"s 

blunt pen travels along tlie thin paper 

" What a dear old woman Aunt Jenny is ! 
How well she tells a story ! Lady Dampier 
was telling me the same story the other day. 
I was very much bored. I thought each one 
person more selfish and disagreeable than the 
other. Now Aunt Jenny takes up the tale. 
The personages all brighten under her friendly 
old spectacles, and become good, gentle-hearted, 
romantic, and heroic all at once — as she is her- 
self. I was a good deal struck by her report of 
poor John's sentimental imbroglio. I drank 
tea with the imbroglio this evening, and I can't 
help rather liking her. She has a sweet pretty 
face, and her voice, when she talks, pipes and 
thrills like a musical snufi-box. Aunt Jenny 
wants her for a niece, that is certain, and says 
that a man ought to marry the wife he likes 
best. You are sure to agree to that; I won- 
der what Miles says ? But she's torn with sym- 
pathy, poor old dear, and first cries over one 
girl, and then over the other. She says John 
came to her one day at Paris in a great state of 
mind, declared he was quite determined to fin- 
ish with all his uncertainty, and that he had 
made up his mind to break with La;titia, and 
to marry Elizabeth, if she was still in her old 
Avay of thinking. Aunt Jean got frightened, 
refused to interfere, carried oflf the young lad\', 
and has not spoken to her on the subject. John, 
who is really behaving very foolishly, is still at 
Paris, and has not followed them, as I know my 
aunt hoped he would have done. I can't help 
being very sorry for him. Lady Dampier has 
heard of his goings-on. A Frenchman told 
some people, who told some people, who — you 
know how things get about. Some day when I 
don't wish it, you will hear all about me, and 
write me a thundering letter all the way from 
Lucknow. There is no doubt about the matter. 
It would be a thousand pities if John were to 
break oflT with LiEtitia, to speak nothing of the 
cruelty and the insult to the poor child. 

" And so Rosey and Posey are coming home. 
I am right sorry for their poor papa and mamma. 
I hope you have sometimes talked to my nieces 
about their respectable Uncle Will. They are 
sure to be looked after and happy with Aunt Jen- 
ny, but how you will be breaking your hearts af- 
ter them ! A priest ought perhaps to talk to 
you of one consolation very certain and effica- 
cious. But I have always found my dear Prue 
a better Christian than myself, and I have no 
need to jireach to her." 

Will Dampier wrote a close straight little 
handwriting ; only one side of his paper was 
full, but he did not care to write any niore that 
night : he put up his letter in his case, and 
walked out into the garden. 

It was a great starlight night. The sea gloom- 
ed vast and black on the horizon. A few oth- 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



2g: 



er people were walking in the garden, and they 
talked in hushed yet distinct voices. Many of 
the windows were open and alight. Will look- 
ed up at the window of the room where he had 
been to see his aunt. That was alight and open 
too, and some one was sitting with clasped hands 
looking at the sky. Dampier lit a cigar, and 
he, too, walked along gazing at the stars, and 
thinking of True's kind flice as he went along. 
Other constellations clustered above her head, 
he thought ; between them lay miles of land 
and sea, great countries, oceans rushing, plains 
arid and unknown ; vast jungles, deserted cities, 
crumbling in a broiling sun ; it gave him a lii- 
tle vertigo to try and realize what hundreds of 
miles of distance stretched between their two 
beating hearts. Distance so great, and yet so 
little ; for he could love his sister, and think of 
her, and sec her, and talk to her, as if she was 
in the next room. What was that distance 
which could be measured by miles, compared to 
the immeasurable gulf that separates each one 
of us from tlie nearest and dearest whose hands 
we may hold in our own ? 

Will walked on, his mind full of dim thoughts, 
such as come to most people on starlight nights ; 
when constellations are blazing, and the living 
soul gazes with awe-stricken wonder at the great 
living universe, in the midst of wliich it waits 
and trembles and adores. " The world all 
about has faded away," he thought; " and lies 
dark and dim and instinct. People are lying 
like dead people stretched out, unconscious on 
their beds, heedless, unknowing. Here and 
there in the houses, a few dead people are lying 
like the sleepers. Are they as unconscious as 
the living ?" He goes to the end of the garden, 
and stands looking upward, until he can not 
think longer of tilings so far above him. It 
seems to him that his brain is like the string of 
an instrument, which will break under the pas- 
sionate vibration of harmonies so far beyond 
his powers to render. He goes back into the 
house. Every thing suddenly grows strangely 
real and fomiliar, and yet it seemed, but a mo- 
ment ago, as if to-day and its cares had passed 
away forever. 



CHAPTER IX. 

To humbler functions, awful Power, 

I call thee : I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance fjom this hour. 

Oh, let my weakness have an end. 
Give unto nie, made lowly wise, 
Tlie spirit of self-sacrifice — 
The confidence of reason give. 
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live. 
Ode to Duty. 

Ellt had a little Indian box that her father 
had once given to her. It served her for a 
work-box and a treasure-casket. She kept lier 
scissors in it and her ruby ring ; some lavender, 
a gold thimble, and her father's picture. And 
then in a lower tray were some cottons and 
tapes, one or two letters, a pencil, and a broken 
silver chain. She had a childish habit of play- 



ing with it still, sometimes, and setting it to 
rights. It was lying on the breakfiist-table 
next morning wlien Will Dampier came in to 
see his aunt. Miss Dampier, who liked order, 
begged EUy to take it off, and Dampier politely, 
to save her the trouble, set it down somewhere 
else, and then came to the table and asked for 
some tea. The fishes had had no luck that 
morning, he told them ; he had been out in a 
boat since seven o'clock, and brought back a 
basketful. The sea air made them hungry, no 
doubt, for they came by dozens — little feeble 
whiting— and nibbled at tlieir bait. "I wisli 
you would come," he said to his aunt; "the 
boat bobs up and down in the sunshine, and 
the breeze is delightfully fresh, and the people 
come down on the beach and stare at you 
through telescopes." As he talked to his aunt 
he glanced at EUy, who was i)0uring out his 
tea ; he said to himself that she was certainly 
an uncommonly pretty girl ; and then he began 
to speculate about an odd soft look in her 
eyes. "When I see people with that expres- 
sion," he wrote to his sister, " I always nsk my- 
self what it means ? I have seen it in the 
glass, sometimes, when I have been shaving. 
Miss Gilmour was not looking at me, but at 
the muffins and teacups. She was nicely 
dressed in blue calico; she was smiling; her 

! hair trim and shiny. I could hardly believe it 
was my wailing banshee of the previous night." 

! (What follows is to the purpose, so I may as 
well transcribe a little more of Will's letter.) 

j "When she had poured out my tea, she took 
up her hat and said she should go down to the 

I station and get The Times for my aunt. I 
should have offered my services, but Aunt Jean 

' made me a sign to stay. What for, do you 
think ? To sliow me a letter she had received 
in the morning from that absurd John, who 
can not make up his mind. 'I do not,' he 
says, 'want you to talk poor Elly into a r/rande 

' passion. But if her feelings are unchanged, I 

I will marry her to-morrow, if she chooses ; and 

j I dare say Tishy will not break her heart. 
Perhaps you will think me a fool for my 
pains ; but I shall not be alone in the world. 
What was poor little Elly herself when she 
cried for the moon ?' This is all rodomon- 
tade ; John is not acting fairly by Lajtitia, to 
whom he is bound by every possible promise. 

"My aunt said just now that it would be 
hard for Tishy if he married her, liking Eliza- 
beth best : and there is truth in that. But he 
mustn't like her best ; Miss Gilmour will get 
over her fancy for him, and he must get over 
his for her. If he had only behaved like a 
man and married her right off two years ago, 
and never hankered after the flesh-pots of 
Egypt, or if he had only left her alone to settle 
down with her French pasteur — 

" ' If — if,' cried my aunt, impatiently, when 
I said as much (you know her way) — ' he has 
done wrong and been sorry for it. Will, which 
of us can do more ? I doubt whether you 
would have behaved a bit better in his place.' " 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



This portion of Mr. Will's letter was written 
at his aunt's writing-book immediately after 
their little talk. Elly came in rosy from her 
walk, and Will went on diligently, looking up 
every now and then with the sense of bien-itre 
which a bachelor experiences when he suddenly 
finds himself domesticated and at home with 
kind women. 

Miss Dampier was sitting in the window. 
She had got The Times in her hand, and was 
trying to read. Every now and then she looked 
up at her nephew, with his curly head bent over 
his writing, at Elly leaning lazily back in her 
chair, sewing idly at a little shred of work. 
Her hair was clipped, the color had faded out 
of her cheeks, her eyes gleamed. Pretty as 
she was, still she was changed — how changed 
from the Elizabeth of eighteen months ago 
whom Miss Dampier could remember I The 
old lady went on with her paper, trying to read. 
She turned to the French correspondent, and 
saw something about the Chamber, the Em- 
peror, about Italy ; about M. X , the rich 

banker, having resolved to terminate his exist- 
ence, when fortunately his servant enters the 
room at the precise moment when he was pre- 
paring to precipitate himself . . . . "The sei'v- 
ant to precipitate .... tlie window .... the . . . 
poor Tishy ! At my age I did think I should 
have done with sentimental troubles. Heigh- 
ho I heigh-ho !" sighs Miss Dampier. 

Elly wanted some thread, and rose with a 
soft rustic, and got her box, and came back to 
her easy-chair. Out of the window they could 
see all the pleasant idle business of the little 
seaport going on, the people strolling in the 
garden, or sitting in all sorts of queer corners, 
the boats, the mariners (I do believe they are 
hired to stand about in blue shirts, and sliake 
their battered old noses as tlicy prose for hours 
together). The waiter came and took away the 
breakfast, William went on with his letter, and 
Miss Dampier, with John's little note in her 
pocket, was, as I say, reading the most extra- 
ordinary things in The Times all about her own 
private concerns. Nobody spoke for some ten 
minutes, when suddenly came a little gasp, a 
little sigh from Elly's low chair, and the girl 
said, "Aunt Jean! look here," almost crying, 
and held out something in her thin hand. 

"What is it, my dear?" said Miss Dampier, 
looking up hastily, and pulling off her specta- 
cles : they were dim somehow, and wanted 
wiping. 

"Poor dear, dearest Tishy," cried Elly, in 
her odd impetuous way. "Why does he not 
go to her? Aunt Jean, look here, I found it 
in my box — only look here ;" and she put a 
little note into Miss Dampier's hand. 

Will looked up curiously from his writing. 
Elly had forgotten all about him. Miss Dam- 
pier took the letter, and when she had read 
what was written, and then turned over the 
page, she took off her glasses again with a click, 
and said, " What nonsense !" 

And so it was nonsense, and yet the non- 



sense touched Elizabeth and brought tears into 
her eyes. They came faster and faster, and 
then suddenly remembering that she was not 
alone, and ashamed that Dampier should see 
her cry again, she jumped up with a shining, 
blushing tear -dimmed tender face, and ran 
away out of the room. Aunt Jean looked at 
Will doubtfully, then hesitated, and gave him 
the little shabby letter that had brought these 
bright tears into the girl's eyes. Dear old soul ! 
she made a sort of confessor of her nephew. 

The confessor saw a few foolish words which 
LiEtitia must have written days ago, never 
thinking that her poor little words were to be 
scanned by stranger eyes — written perhaps un- 
consciously on a stray sheet of paper. There 
was "John. Dear John I Dear, dearest ! I 
am so hap .... John and Lsetitia. John my 
jo. Goose and gander." And then, by some 
odd chance, she must have folded the blotted 
sheet together and forgotten what she had 
written and sent it off to Elly Gilmour, with 
a little careless note about Schlangenbad, and 
" more fortunate next time," on the other 
side. 

"Poor little Letty!" thought Dampier, and 
he doubled the paper up and put it back into 
the lavender box as the door oi)ened, and Miss 
Gilmour came back into the room. She had 
dried her eyes, she had fastened on her gray 
shawl. She picked up her hat, which was ly- 
ing on the floor, and began pulling on two very 
formidable looking gauntlets over her slim 
white hands. " I am going for a little walk," 
she said to Miss Dampier. " Will you" — hesi- 
tating and blushing — "direct that little note of 
LiBtitia's to Sir John ? I am going along the 
cliff towards the pretty little bay." 

Will was quite melted and touched. Was 
this the scheming young woman against wliom 
he had been warned ? the woman who had en- 
tangled his cousin with her wiles ? 

"Aunt Jenny," he says, with a sudden 
glance, "are you going to tell her wliy John 
Dampier does not go to Lajtitia ?" 

"Why does he not go?" Elly repeats, losing 
her color a little. 

" He says tliat if you would like him to stay, 
he thinks he ought not to go," says Jean Dam- 
pier, hesitating, and tearing corners off Tlte 
Times newspaper. 

Will Dampier turned his broad back and 
looked out of the window. There was a mo- 
ment's silence. They could hear the tinkling 
of bells, the whistling of the sea, the voices of 
the men calling to each other in the port : the 
sunshine streamed in : Elly was standing in it, 
and seemed gilt with a golden background. 
She ought to have held a palm in her hand, 
poor little martyr ! 

It seemed a long time, it was only a minute, 
and then she spoke ; a sweet honest blush 
came deepening into Elizabeth's pale cheeks : 
" I don't want to marry him because I care for 
him," she said, in a thrilling, patlietic voice. 
"Why should Lajtitia, who is so fond of him, 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



2G7 



suffer because I behaved so badly ?" The tears 
once more came welling up into her eyes. 

" I shall think I ought to have died instead 
of getting well," she said. "Aunt Jean, send 
him the little note ; make him go, dear Aunt 
Jean." 

Miss Dampier gave Elly a kiss ; she did not 
know what to say ; she could not influence her 
one way or another. 

She wrote to John that morning, taking good 
care to look at the back of her paj^er first. 

"Flag Hotel, Boatstown,) 
November 15th. / 

"My Dear Jack, — I had great doubts 
about communicating your letter to Elizabeth. 
It seemed to me that the path you had deter- 
mined upon was one full of thorns and difficul- 
ties, for her, for you, and for my niece Lretitia. 
But although Elly is of far too affectionate a 
nature ever to give up caring for any of her 
friends, let me assure you that her feelings are 
now only those of friendly regard and deep in- 
terest in your welfare. When I mentioned to 
her the contents of your letter (I think it best 
to speak plainly), she said, with her eyes full of 
tears, that she did not want to marry you — that 
she felt you were bound to return to La;titia. 
She had been much affected by discovering the 
inclosed little note from your cousin. I must 
say that the part which concerns you interested 
me much, more so than her letter to her old 
friend. But she was evidently preoccupied at 
the time, and Elly, far from feeling neglected, 
actually began to cry, she was so touched by 
this somewhat singular discovery. Girls' tears 
are easily dried. If it lies in my power, she 
shall yet be made happy. 

" Thei-e is nothing now, as you see, that need 
prevent your fulfilling your engagements. You 
are all very good children, on the whole, and I 
trust that your troubles are but fleeting clouds 
that will soon pass away. That you and Lajti- 
tia may enjoy all prosperity is the sincere hope 
and desire of your affectionate old aunt, 

"J. M. Dampier." 

Miss Dampier, having determined that she 
had written a perfectly impartial letter, put it 
up in an envelope, rang the bell, and desired a 
waiter to post it. 

Number twenty-three's bell rang at the same 
moment ; so did number fifteen ; immediately 
after a quantity of people poui'ed in by the 
eleven o'clock train ; the waiter flung the letter 
down on his pantry table, and rushed off to at- 
tend to half a dozen things at once, of which 
posting the note was not one. 

About three o'clock that afternoon Miss 
Dampier in her close bonnet was standing in 
the passage talking to a tall young man with a 
black waistcoat and wide-awake. 

"What are you going to do?" he said. 
" Couldn't we go for a drive somewhere ?" 

"I have ordered a carriage at three," said 
Miss Dampier, smiling. "We are going up on 



the hills. You might come, too, if you liked 
it." And when the carriage drove up to the 
door there he was, waiting to hand her in. 

He had always, until he saw her, imagined 
Elly a little flirting person, quite different from 
the tall young lady in the broad hat, with the 
long cloak falling from her shoulders, who was 
prepared to accompany them. She had gone 
away a little, and his aunt sent him to fetch 
her. She was standing against the railing, 
looking out at the sea with her sad eyes. 
There was the lawn, there was the sea, there 
was Elly. A pretty young lady always makes 
a pretty picture ; but out-of-doors in the sun- 
shine she looks a prettier young lady than any- 
where else, thought Mr. Will, as' Elizabetii 
walked across the grass. He was not alone in 
his opinion ; more than one person looked up as 
she passed. He began to think that, far from 
doing a foolish thing, his aunt had shown her 
usual good sense in taking such good care of 
this sad, charming, beautiful young woman. 
It was no use trying to think ill of her. With 
such a face as hers, she has a right to fall in 
love with any body she pleases, he thought ; 
and so, as they were walking towards the car- 
riage. Will Dampier, thinking that this was a 
good opportunity for a little confidential com- 
munication, said, somewhat in his professional 
I manner : " You seem out of spirits. Miss Gil- 
^ mour. I hope that you do not regret your de- 
cision of this morning." 

"Yes, I do regret it," said poor Elly, and 
two great tears came dribbling down her 
cheeks. "Do you think that when a girl gives 
up what she likes best in the world she is not 
sorry ? I am horribly sorry." 

Will was very much puzzled how to answer 
this unexpected confidence. He said, looking 
rather foolish : — 

" One is so apt to ask unnecessary questions. 
But, take my word for it, you have done quite 
right, and some day you will be more glad than 
you are now." 

I must confess that my heroine here got ex- 
ceedingly cross. 

" Ah, that is what people say who do not 
know of what they are talking. What business 
of yours is my poor, unlucky, bruised and bro- 
ken fancy?" she said. " Ah ! Why were you 
ever told ? What am I ? What is it to you ?" 

All the way she sat silent and dull, staring 
out at the landscape as they went along ; suf- 
fering, in truth, poor child, more than either of 
her companions could tell : saying good-bye to 
the dearest hope of her youth, tearing herself 
away from the familiar and the well-loved 
dreams. Dreams, do I say? They had been 
the Realities to her, poor child ! for many a 
day. And the realities had seemed to be the 
dreams. 

They drove along a straight road, and came 
at last to some delightful fresh downs, with the 
sea sparkling in the distance, and a sort of au- 
tumnal glow on the hills all about. The breeze 
came in fresh gusts, the carriage jogged on, still 



2G8 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



uphill, and Will Dampier walked alongside, well 
pleased with the entertainment, and making 
endless jokes at his aunt. She rather liked 
being laughed at ; but Elly never looked up 
once, or heeded what they said. They were 
going towards a brown church, that was stand- 
ing on the top of a hill. It must have been 
built by the Danes a thousand years ago. There 
it stood, looking out at the sea, brown, grim, 
solitary, with its grave -yard on the hill -side. 
Trees were clustering down in a valley below ; 
but here, up above, it was all bleak, bare, and 
solitary, only tinted and painted by the brown 
and purple sunshine. 

They stopped the carriage a little way off, and 
got out and passed through a gate, and walked 
up the hill-top. Elly went first. Will followed, 
and Miss Dampier came slowly after. As Elly 
reached the top of the hill she turned round, 
and stood against the landscape, like a pic- 
ture with a background, and looked back and 
said: — 

"Do you hear?" 

The organ inside the church was playing a 
chant, and presently some voices began chant- 
ing to the playing of the organ. Elly went 
across the grave-yard, and leaned against the 
porch, listening. Five minutes went by ; her 
anger was melting away. It was exquisitely 
clear, peaceful, and tranquil here, up on this hill 
where the dead people were lying among the 
grass and daisies. All tlie bitterness went away 
out of her heart, somehow, in the golden glow. 
She said to herself that she felt now, suddenly, 
for the first time, as if she could bury her fancy 
and leave it behind her in this quiet place. As 
the chant went on, her whole heart uttered in 
harmony with it, though her lips were silent. 
She did not say to herself, what a small thing it 
was that had troubled her: what vast combina- 
tions were here to make her happy ; hills, vales, 
light, with its wondrous refractions, harmony, 
color ; the great ocean, the great world, )-olling 
on amid the greater worlds beyond ! 

But she felt it somehow. The voices ceased, 
and all was very silent. 

"Oh, give thanks," the Psalm begnn again ; 
and Elly felt that she could indeed give thanks 
for mercies that were more than she had ever 
deserved. When she was at home with her 
mother she thought — just now the thought of 
returning there scarce gave her a pang — she 
should remember to-day, all the good hopes, 
good prayers, and aspirations which had come 
to her in this peaceful grave-yard up among the 
hills. She had been selfish, discontented, and 
ungrateful all her life, angry and chafed but an 
hour ago, and here was peace, hers for the mo- 
ment ; here was tranquil happiness. The mad, 
rash delight she had felt when she had been 
with John Dampier w.as nothing compared to 
this great natural peace and calm. A sort of 
veil seemed lifted from her eyes, and she felt 
for the first time tiiat she could be happy, though 
what she liad wished for most was never to be 
hers — that there was other happiness than that 



which she had once fancied part of life itself. 
Did she ever regret the decision she had made ? 
Did she ever see occasion to think differently 
from this ? If, in after times she may have felt 
a little sad, a little lonely now and then — if she 
may have thought with a moment's regret of 
those days that were now already past and over 
forever — still she knew she had done rightly 
when she determined to bury the past, with all 
kindness, with reverent hands. Somehow, in 
some strange and mysterious manner, the bit- 
terness of her silly troubles had left her— left 
her a better girl than she had been ever before. 
She was more good, more happy, more old, more 
•wise, now, and, in truth, there was kindness in 
store for her, there were suns yet to shine, iViend- 
ly words to be spoken, troubles yet to be en- 
dured, other than those sentimental griefs which 
had racked her youth so fiercely. 

While they were all on the hill-top the steam- 
er came into the port earlier than on the day 
when Will Dampier arrived. One of the pas- 
sengers walked up to the hotel and desired a 
waiter to show him to Miss Dampier's room. 
It was empty, of course ; chairs pushed about, 
windows open, work and books on the table. 
The paper was lying on the floor — the passen- 
ger noticed that a corner had been torn ofi"; a 
little box was open on the table, a ruby ring 
glittering in the tray, " How careless !" he 
thought; and then went and flung himself into 
a great arm-chair. 

So ! siie had been here a minute ago. There 
was a glove lying on a chair ; there were writ- 
ing-materials on a side-table — a blotting-book 
open, pens Avith the ink scarcely dry ; and in 
this room, in this place, he was going to decide 
his fate — rightly or wrongly he could not tell. 
Lretitia is a cold-blooded little creature, he kept 
saying to himself; this girl with all her faults, 
with all her impulses, has a heart to break or to 
mend. My mother will learn too late that I 
can not submit to such dictation. By Jove ! 
what a letter it is! He pulled it out of his 
pocket, read it once more, and crumpled it up 
and threw it into the fireplace. It was certain- 
ly not a very wise composition — long, vicious, 
wiry tails and flourishes. " John, words can 
not," etc., etc. "What Lady Tomsey," etc., 
etc. "How horror-struck Mnjor Fotterton," 
etc., etc. ; and finally concluded with a com- 
mand that he should instantly return to Schlan- 
genbad ; or, failing this, an announcement that 
she should immediately join him, uherever he 
might be ! 

So Sir John, in a rage, packed up and came 
off" to Boatstown— his mother can follow him or 
not, as she chooses ; and here is walking up 
and down the room, while Elly, driving over 
the hills, is saying farewell, farewell, good-bye to 
her old love forever. 

Could he have really cared for any body? 
By some strange contradiction, now that the 
die is cast, now that, after all these long doubts 
and mistrusts, he has made up his mind, some- 
how new doubts arise. He wonders whether 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



209 



he and Elly will be happy together ? He pic- 
tures stormy scenes ; he intuitively shrinks from 
the idea of her unconventionalities, her eager- 
ness, her enthusiasm. He is a man who lilces 
a quiet life, who would appreciate a sober, hap- 
py home — a gentle, equable companion, to greet 
him quietlj', to care for his tastes and his ways, 
to sympathize, to befriend him. Whereas now 
it is he who will have to study his companion 
all tlie rest of his life ; if he thwart her she will 
fall ill of sorrow ; if he satisfy her she will ask 
more and more ; if he neglect her — being busy, 
or weary, or what not— slie will die of grief; 
if he want sympathy and common sense she will 
only adore him. Poor Elly I it is hard upon 
her that he should make such a bugbear of her 
poor little love. His courage is oozing out at 
his finger-ends. He is in a rage with her, and 
with himself, and with his mother, and with his 
aunt. He and every body else are in a league 
to behave as badly as possible. He will try and 
do his duty, he thinks, for all that, for my hero 
is an honest-hearted man, though a weak one. 
It is not Lady Dampier's letter that shall influ- 
ence him one way or another ; if Elly is break- 
ing her heart to have him, and if Letty doesn't 
care one way or the other, as is likely enough, 
■well then he will marry Elizabetli, he cries, with 
a stout desperation, and he dashes up and down 
the room in a fury. 

Andjust at this minute the waiter comes in, 
and says Miss Dampier has gone out for a drive, 
and will not be back for some time. Mr. Dam- 
pier is staying in the house, but he has gone out 
with her, and who shall he say? And Sir John, 
looking up, gives his name and says he will wait. 

Upon which the waiter suddenly remembers 
the letter he left in his pantry, and, feeling rath- 
er guilty, proposes to fetch it. And by this 
time Elly, and Will, and Miss Dampier have got 
into the carriage again and are driving home- 
ward. 

There was a certain humility about Elly, 
with all her ill-humors and varieties, which 
seemed to sweeten her whole nature. Will 
Dampier, who was rather angry with her for 
her peevishness, could not help forgiving her, 
when, as he helped her out of the carriage in 
the court-yard, she said : — 

"I don't quite know how to say it — b-ut I 
was very rude just now. I was very unhappy, 
and I hope you will forgive me," and she looked 
up. The light from the hills was still in her 
face. 

"It was I who was rude," says Will, good- 
naturedly liolding out his hand ; and of course 
he forgave her. 

The band was playing, the garden was full 
of people ; but Aunt Jenny was cold, and glad 
to get home. The ladies went up stairs : Will 
remained down below, strolling up and down in 
the garden with the rest of the people ; but at 
five o'clock the indefatigable bell began to ring 
once more ; the afternoon boat was getting up 
its steam, and making its preparations to cross 
over to the other side. 



Will met a friend of his, who was going over 
in it, and he walked down with him to see him 
off. He went on board with him, shook hands, 
and turned to come away. At that minute 
some one happened to look round, and Will, 
to his immense surprise, recognized his cousin. 
That was John ; those were his whiskers; there 
was no doubt about it. 

He sprang forwai'd and called him by name. 
"John," he said, "you here?" 

"Well!" said John, smiling a little, "why 
not me, as well as you ? Are you coming 
across?" 

"Are you going across?" said Will, doubt- 
fully. 

"Yes," the other answered ; "I came over 
on business; don't say any thing of my having 
been here. Pray remember this. I have a 
particular reason." 

"I shall say nothing," said Will. "I am 
glad you are going, John," he added, stupidly. 
" I think I know your reason — a very nice, 
pretty reason too." 

"So those women have been telling you all 
about my private affiiirs?" said Sir John, speak- 
ing quick, and looking very black. 

" Your mother told me first," Will said. "I 
saw her the other day. For all sakes, I am 
glad you are giving up all thoughts of Elly Gil- 
mour." 

" Are you ?" said John, dryly. They waited 
for a minute in awkward silence, but as they 
were shaking hands and saying "Good-bye," 
suddenly John melted and said : "Look here, 
Will, I should like to see her once more. 
Could you manage this for me? I don't want 
her to know, you know ; but could you bring 
her to the end of the pier? I am going back 
to Letty, as you see, so I don't think she need 
object." 

Will nodded, and went up the ladder and 
turned towards the house without a word, 
walking quickly and hurrying along. The 
band in the garden burst out into a pretty mel- 
ancholy dance tune. The sun went down peg 
by peg into the sea ; the steamer still whistled 
and puffed as it got up its steam. 

Elly was sitting alone. She had lighted a can- 
dle, and was writing home. Her hat was lying 
on a chair beside her. The music had set her 
I dreaming; her thoughts were far away, in the 
dismal old home again, with Fran9oise, and 
Anthony, and the rest of them. She was be- 
ginning to live the new life she had been pic- 
turing to herself; trying to imagine herself 
good and contented in the hateful old home ; 
it seemed almost endurable just at this minute, 
when suddenly the door burst open, and Will 
Dampier came in with his hat on. 

" I want you to come out a little way with 
me," he said. "I want you to come and see 
the boat off. There's no time to lose." 

" Thank you," said Elly," but I'm busy." 

" It won't take you five minutes," he said. 

She lauglied. "I'm lazy and rather tired." 

Will could not give up. He persisted : he 



270 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



knew he had a knack of persuading his old 
women at home ; he tried it on Miss Gilmour. 

"I see you have not forgiven rae," he said; 
•'you won't trust yourself with me." 

" Yes, indeed," said Elly ; "I am only lazy." 

The time was going. He looked at his 
watch ; there were but five minutes — but five 
minutes for John to take leave of his love of 
many a year; but five minutes and it would be 
too late. He grew impatient. 

" Pray, come," he said. " I shall look upon 
it as a sign that you have forgiven me. Will 
you do me this favor — will you come ? I as- 
sure you I shall not be ungrateful." 

Elly thought it odd, and still hesitated ; but 
it seemed unkind to refuse. She got up, fetched 
her hat and cloak, and in a minute he was hur- 
rying her along across the lawn, along the side 
of the dock, out to the pier's end. 

They were only just in time. "You are 
very mysterious," said Elly. "Why do you 
care so much to see the boat go out? How 
chilly it is ! Are you not glad to be here on 
this side of the water ? Ah ! how soon it will 
be time for me to go back !" 

Will did not answer, he was so busy watch- 
ing the people moving about on board. Puft"! 
puff! Can not you imagine the great boat pass- 
ing close at their feet, going out in the night 
into the open sea ; the streaks of light in the 
west ; Elly, with flushed, rosy-red cheeks, like 
the sunset, standing under the light-house, and 
talking in her gentle voice, and looking out, 
saying it would be fine to-morrow ? 

Can't you fimcy poor Sir John leaning against 
a pile of baggage, smoking a cigar, and looking 
up wistfully ? As he slid past he actually 
caught the tone of her voice. Like a drown- 
ing man who can see in one instant years of his 
past life flashing before him, Sir John saw Elly 
— a woman with lines of care in her face — 
there, standing in the light of the lamp, with 
the red streams of sunset beyond, and the night 
closing in all round about ; and then he saw her 
as he had seen her once — a happy, unconscious 
girl, briglitening, smiling at his coming : and as 
the picture travelled on, a sad girl, meeting him 
in the street by chance — a desperate, almost 
broken-hearted woman, looking up gravely into 
his face in the theatre. Puff! puft"! — it was all 
over, she was still smiling before his eyes. One 
last glimpse of the two, and they had disappear- 
ed. He slipped away right out of her exist- 
ence, and she did not even guess that he had 
been near. She stood unwitting for an instant, 
watching the boat as it tossed out to sea, and 
then said, " Now we will go home." A sudden 
gloom and depression seemed to have come 
over her. She walked along quite silently, and 
did not seem to heed the presence of her com- 
panion. 



CHAPTER X. 

.... Poor forsaken Flos ! 
Not all her brightness, sportfulness, and bloom, 
Her sweetness and her wildness, and her wit, 
Could save her from desertion. No ; their loves 
Were off the poise. Love competent 
Makes better bargains than love aftiuent. 

Before he went to bed that night, Dampier 
wrote the end of his letter to Prue. He de- 
scribed, rather amusingly, the snubbing which 
Elly had given him, the dry way in which Sir 
John had received his advances, the glances of 
disfavor with which Aunt Jean listened to his 
advice. " So this is all the gratitude one gets 
for interfering in the most sensible manner. 
If you are as ungrateful, Prue, for this immense 
long letter, I shall, indeed, have labored in vain. 
It is one o'clock. Bong ! there it went from the 
tower. Good-night, dear; your beloved broth- 
er is going to bed. Love to Myles. Kiss the 
children all roundfor their and your aflfectionate 
W. D." 

Will Dampier was not in the least like his let- 
ter. I know two or three men who are manly 
enough, who write gentle, gossiping letters like 
women. He was a big, commonplace young 
man, straight-minded and tender-hearted, with 
immense energy, and great good spirits. He 
believed in himself; indeed, he tried so heartily 
and conscientiously to do what was right, that 
he could not help knowing more or less that he 
was a good fellow. And then he had a happy 
knack of seeing one side of a question, and hav- 
ing once determined that so and so was the 
thing to be done, he could do so and so without 
one doubt or compunction. He belonged to the 
school of athletic Christianity. I heard some 
one once say that there are some of that sect 
who would almost make out cock-fighting to be 
a religious ceremony. William Dampier did 
not go so far as this ; but he heartily believed 
that nothing was wrong that was done with a 
Christian and manly spirit. He rode across 
country, he smoked pipes, he Avent out shooting, 
he played billiards and cricket, he rowed up and 
down the river in his boat, and he was charming 
with all the grumbling old men and women in 
his parish, he preached capital sermons — short, 
brisk, well considered. He enjoyed life and all 
its good things with a grateful temper, and made 
most people happy about him. 

One day, Elly began to think what a difi'ercnt 
creed Will Dampier's was from her stepfather's, 
only she did not put her thoughts into words. 
It wag not her way. 

Tourneur, with a great heart, set on the great- 
est truth, feeling the constant presence of those 
mightier dispensations, cared but little for the 
aff^xirs of to-day : they seemed to him subordi- 
nate, immaterial ; they lost all importance from 
comparison to that awful reality that this man 
had so vividly realized to himself. To Dam- 
pier, it was through the simple language of his 
daily life that he could best express what good 
was in him. He saw wisdom and mercy, he saw 
order and progression, he saw infinite variety and 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



271 



wonder in all natural things, in all life, at all 
places and hours. By looking at this world, he 
could best understand and adore the next. 

And yet Tourneur's was the loftier spirit ; to 
him had come a certain knowledge and under- 
standing, of which Dampier had scarce a concep- 
tion. Dampier, who felt less keenly, could well 
be more liberal, more forbearing. One of these 
two told Elly that we were put into the world 
to live in it, and to be thankful for our creation ; 
to do our duty, and to labor until the night 
should come when no man can work. The oth- 
er said, sadly, you are born only to overcome the 
flesh, to crush it under foot, to turn away from all 
that you like most, innocent or not. What do 
I care ? Are you an immortal spirit, or are you 
a clod of earth ? Will you suffer that tliis all- 
wondrous, all-precious gift should be clogged, 
and stifled, and choked, and destroyed, maybe, 
by despicable daily concerns ? Tourneur him- 
self set an example of what he preaclied by his 
devoted, humble, holy, self-denying life. And 
yet Elly turned with a sense of infinite relief to 
the other creed : she could understand it, sym- 
pathize with it, try to do good, though to be good 
was beyond her frail powers. Already she was 
learning to be thankful, to be ciieerful, to be un- 
selfish, to be keenly penitent for her many short- 
comings. 

As the time drew near when an answer to her 
note might be expected, Miss Dampier grew anx- 
ious and fidgety, dropped her stitches, looked out 
for the post, and wondered why no letter came. 
Elly was only a little silent, a little thoughtful. 
She used to go out by herself and take long 
walks. One day Will, returning from one of 
his own peregrinations, came upon her sitting 
on the edge of a cliff staring at the distant coast 
of France. It lay blue, pale, like a dream-coun- 
try, and glimmered in the horizon. Who would 
believe that there was reality, busy life in all 
earnest, going on beyond those calm, heavenly- 
looking hills ! Anotlier time his aunt sent him 
out to look for her, and he found her at the end 
of the pier, leaning against the chain, and still 
gazing towards France. 

In his rough friendly manner he said, " I wish 
you would look another way sometimes, Miss 
Gilmour, up or down, or in the glass even. You 
make me feel very guilty, for to tell. the truth I 
— I advised John — " 

"I thought so," Elly cried, interrupting him. 
"And you were quite right. I advised him too," 
she said, with a smile. "Don't you think he 
has taken your advice ?" 

Will looked down uncomfortably. "I think 
so," he said, in a, low tone. 

And, meanwhile. Miss Dampier was sitting in 
the window and the sunshine, knitting castles 
in the air. 

" Suppose he does not take this as an answer ? 
Suppose Loetitia has found somebody else, sup- 
pose the door opens and he comes in, and the 
sun shines into the room, and then he seizes 
Elly's hand, and says, ' Though you give me up, 
I will not give up the hope of calling you mine,' 



and Elly glances up bright, blushing, happy. . . . 
Suppose Lady Dampier is furious, and dear 
Tishy makes peace ? I should like to see Eliza- 
beth mistress of the dear old house. I think my 
mother was like her. I don't approve of cous- 
ins' marriages How charming she would 

look coming along the old oak gallery !" Look 
at the old maid in the window building castles in 
the air through her spectacles. But it is a ri- 
diculous sight ; she is only a fat, foolish old wom- 
an. All her fancies are but follies flying away 
with caps and jingling bells — they vanish through 
the windows as the door opens and the young 
people come in. 

"Here is a letter for you the porter gave me 
in the hall," said Will, as carelessly as he could ; 
Jean saw Elly's eyes busy glancing at the writ- 
ing, 

" My dear Aunt Jean, — Many thanks for 
your note, and the inclosure. My mother and 
La3titia are with me, and we shall all go back 
to Friar's Bush on Thursday. Elly's decision 
is the wisest under the circumstances, and we 
had better abide by it. Give her my love. Laj- 
titia knows nothing, as my mother has had the 
grace to be silent. Yours affectionately, 

"J. CD. 

" P.S. — You will be good to her, won't you ?" 

Miss Dampier read the note imperturbably, 
but while she read there seemed to run through 
her a cold thrill of disappointment, which was 
so unendurable that after a minute she got up 
and left the room. 

When she came back, Elly said with a sigh, 
"Where is he?" 

"At Paris," said Miss Dampier. "They 
have saved him all trouble and come to him. 
He sends you his love, Elly, which is very hand- 
some of him, considering how much it is worth." 

"It lias been worth a great deal to me," said 
Elly, in her sweet voice. "It is all over ; but 
I am grateful still and always shall be. I was 
very rash ; he was very kind. Let me be gi'ate- 
ful, dear Aunt Jean, to those who are good to 
me." And she kissed the old woman's shriv- 
elled hand. 

Miss Gilmour cheered up wonderfully from 
that time. I am sure that if she had been an- 
gry with him, if she had thought herself hardly 
used, if she had had more of what people call 
self-respect,less of that sweet humility of nature, 
it would not have been so. 

As the short, happy, delightful six weeks 
which she was to spend with Miss Dampier 
came to an end, she began to use all her phi- 
losophy and good resolves to reconcile herself to 
going home. Will Dampier was gone. He 
had only been able to stay a week. They miss- 
ed him. But still they managed to be very 
comfortable together. Tea-talk, long walks, 
long hours on the sands, novels and story-books, 
idleness and contentment — why couldn't it go 
on forever ? Elly said. Aunt Jean laughed 
and said they might as well be a couple of 
jelly-fish at once. And so the time went by. 



272 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



but one day, just before she went away, Mr. 
Will appeared again unexpectedly. 

' Elly was sitting in the sun on the beach, 
throwing idle stones into the sea. She had put 
down her novel on the shingle beside her. It 
was Deerhrooh, I think — an old favorite of Jean 
Dampier's. Every body knows what twelve 
o'clock is like on a fine day at the seaside. It 
means little children, nurses in clean cotton 
gowns, gi'oups of young ladies scattered here 
and there : it means a great cheerfulness and 
tranquillity, a delightful glitter, and life, and 
light : happy folks plashing in the water, bath- 
ing-dresses drying in the sun, all sorts of aches, 
pains, troubles, vanisliing like mist in its fiiend- 
ly beams. Elly was thinking: "Yes, how 
pleasant and nice it is, and how good, how 
dear, Aunt Jean is ! Only six months, and 
she says I am to come to her in her cottage 
again." (Splash a stone goes into the water.) 
"Only six months ! I will try and spend them 
better tlian I ever spent six months before. 
Eugh ! If it was not for Mme. Jacob .... 
I really do love my stepfather, and could live 
happily enough with him." (Splash.) Sud- 
denly an idea came to Elly — the Pasteur Bou- 
lot was the idea. " Why should not he marry 
Mme. Jacob ? He admires her immensely. 
Ah ! wliat fun tiiat would be 1" (Splasli, 
splash, a couple of stones.) And then, tramp, 
tramp, on the shingle behind her, and a cheery 
man's voice says, " Here you are !" 

Elly stares up in some surprise, and looks 
j)leased. and attempts to get up, but Will Dam- 
pier — he was the man — sits down beside her, 
opens his umbrella, and looks very odd. "I 
only came down for the day," he said, after a 
little preliminary talk. "I have been with 
Aunt Jean : she tells me you are going home 
to-morrow." 

''Yes," says Elly, with a sigh ; "but I'm to 
come back again and see her in a little time." 

"I'm glad of that," says the clergyman. 
" What sort of a place do you live in at Paris ?" 

" It is rather a dull place," says Elly. ' ' I'm 
very fond of my stepfather ; besides him, there 
is Anthony, and five young pupils, there is an 
old French cook, and a cross maid, and my 
mother, and a horri — a sister of Monsieur Tour- 
neur's, and Tou-Tou and Lou-Lou, and me." 

" Why that is quite a little colony," said 
Dampier. " And what will you do there when 
you get back?" 

" I must see," said the girl, smiling. " Till 
now I have done nothing at all; but that is 
stupid work. I shall teach Tou-Tou and Lou- 
Lou a little, and mind the house if my mother 
will let me, and learn to cook from Fran9oise. I 
have a notion that it may be useful some day 
or other." 

"Do, by all means," said Will; "it is a cap- 
ital idea. But as years go on, what do you 
mean to do ? Ton-Ton and Lou-Lou will grow 
\ip, and you will have mastered the art of French 
cookery — " 

" How can you ask such things ?" Elly said. 



looking out at the sea. "I can not tell, or 
make schemes for the future." 

"Pray forgive me," said Will, "for asking 
such a question, but have you any idea of mar- 
rying M. Anthony eventually ?" 

" He is a dear old fellow," said Elly, flushing 
up. " I am not going to answer any such 
questions. I am not half good enough for him, 
— that is my answer." 

"But suppose — ?" 

"Pray don't suppose. I am not going to 
marry any body, or to think much about such 
things ever again. Do you imagine that I am 
not the wiser for all my experience ?" 

" Are you wise now?" said Will, still in his 
odd manner. 

"Look at that pretty little fishing-smack," 
Elly interrupted. 

"Show it," he went on, never heeding, "by 
curing yourself of your fancy for my cousin 
John ; by curing yourself, and becoming some 
day a really useful personage and member of 
society." 

Elly stared at him, as well she might. 

" Come back to England some day," he con- 
tinued, still looking away, " to your home, to 
your best vocation in life, to be happ}', and use- 
ful, and well loved," he said, with a sweet in- 
flection in his voice; "that is no very hard 
fate." 

"What are you talking about?" said Elly. 
" How can I cure myself? How can I ever 
forget what is past ? I am not going to be 
discontented, or to be particularly happy at 
home. I am going to try — to try and do my 
best." 

" Well, then, do your best to get cured of 
this hopeless nonsense," said Mr. William Dam- 
pier, "and turn your thoughts to real good 
sense, to the real business of life, and to making 
yourself and others happy, instead of wasting 
and maudling away the next few best years of 
your life, regretting and hankering after what 
is past and unattainable. For some strong 
minds, who can defy the world and stand alone 
without the need of sympathy and sustainment, 
it is a fine thing to be faithful to a chimera," 
he said, with a pathetic ring in his voice. 
" But I assure you infidelity is better still some- 
times, more human, more natural, particularly 
for a confiding and uncertain ])erson like your- 
self." Was he thinking of to-day as he spoke ? 
Was he only thinking of Elly, and preaching 
only to her ? 

"You mean I had better marry him?" said 
Elly, while her eyes filled up with tears, and she 
knocked one stone against another. " And yet 
Aunt Jean says, 'No!' — that I need not think 
of it. It seems to me as if I— I had rather jump 
into the sea at once," said the girl, dashing the 
stones away, "though I love him dearly, dear 
old fellow !" 

" I did not exactly mean M. Anthony," said 
Will, looking round for the first time and smi- 
ling at her tears and his own talk. 

Elizabeth was puzzled still. For, in truth, 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



her sad experience had taught her to put but 
little faith in kindness and implications of kind- 
ness — to attach little meaning to the good-na- 
ture and admiration a beautiful young woman 
was certain to meet with on every side. It 
had not occurred to her that Will, who had 
done so little, seen her so few times, could be 
in love with her; when John, for whom she 
would have died, who said and looked so much, 
had only been playing with her, and pitying her 
as if she had been a child ; and she said, still 
with tears, but not caring much : — 

"I shall never give a different answer. I 
believe you are right, but I have not the courage 
to try. I think I could try and be good if I stay 
as I am ; but to be bound and chained to An- 
thony all the rest of my life — once I thought it 
possible ; but now — You who advise it do not 
know what it is." 

"But I never advised it," Will said ; "you 
won't understand me. Dear Elizabeth, why 
won't you see that it is of myself that I am speak- 
ing?" 

Elly felt for a moment as if the sea had rush- 
ed up suddenly, and caught her away on its bil- 
lows, and then the next moment she found that 
she was only sitting crying in the sun, on the 
sands. 

" Look here : every day T live, I get worse 
and worse," she sobbed. "I flirt with one per- 
son after another — I don't deserve that you 
should ever speak to me again — I can't try and 
talk about myself — I do like you, and — and yet 
I know that the only person I care for really is 
the one who does not care for me ; and if I mar- 
ried you to-morrow, and I saw John coming 
along the street, I should rush away to meet 
him. I don't want to marry him, and I don't 
know what I want. But, indeed, I have tried 
to be good. You are stronger than me, don't 
be hard upon me." 

' "My dear little girl," said Will, loyally and 
kindly, "don't be Hnhap])y, you have not flirted 
with me. I couldn't bo hard u]Jon you if I 
tried : you are a faithful little soul. Shall I 
tell you about myself? Once not so very long 
ago I liked Tishy almost as well as you like 
John. There, now, you see that you have done 
no great harm, and only helped to cheer me up 
again, and I am sure that you and I will be just 
as good friends as ever. As for John," he add- 
ed, in quite a different tone, " the sooner you 
forget all about him the better." 

Will took her hand, which was lying limp on 
the shingle, said " Good-bye," took up his um- 
brella, and walked away. 

And so, by some strange arrangement, Elly 
put away from her a second time the love of a 
good and honorable man, and turned back impo- 
tently to the memory — it was no more — of a dead 
and buried passion. Was this madness or wis- 
dom? Was this the decree of fate or of folly ? 

She sat all in a maze, staring at the sea and 

the wavelets, and in half an hour rushed into 

the sitting-room, flung her arms round Miss 

Dampier's neck, and told her all that happened. 

S 



CHAPTER XL 

Of all the gifts of Heaven to us below, that felicity is the 
sum and tlie chief. I tremble as I hold it, lest I should lose 
it, and be left alone in tlie blank world without it. Again, 
I feel humiliated to think that I possess it ; as hastening 
home to a warm fireside, and a plentiful table, I feel 
ashamed sometimes before the poor outcast beggar shiver- 
ing in the street. 

Ellt expected, she did not know why, that 
there would be some great difference when she 
got back to the old house at Paris. Her heart 
sank as Clementine, looking just as usual, open- 
ed the great door, and stepped forward to help 
with the box. She went into the court-yard. 
Those cocks and hens were pecketing between 
the stones, the poplar-trees shivering, Fran9oise 
in her blue gown came out of the kitchen ; it 
was like one of the dreams which used to haunt 
her pillow. This sameness and monotony was 
terrible. Already iu one minute it seemed to 
her that she had never been away. Her mother 
and father were out. Mme. Jacob came down 
stairs with the children to greet her and see her. 
Ah ! they had got new frocks, and were grown 
— that was some relief. Toii-Tou and Lou-Lou 
were not more delighted with their little check 
black-and-wiiite alpacas than Elly was. 

Anthony was away — she was glad. After 
the first shock the girl took heart and courage, 
and set herself to practise the good resolutions 
she had made when she was away. It was not 
so hard as she had flincied to be a little less ill- 
tempered and discontented, because you see she 
had really behaved so very badly before. But 
it was not so easy to lead the cheerful devoted 
life she had pictured to herself. Her mother 
was very kind, very indifferent, very unhappy, 
Elizabeth feared. She was ill too, and out of 
health, but she bore great suffering with won- 
derful patience and constancy. Tourneur look- 
ed haggard and worn. Had he begun to dis- 
cover that he could not understand his wife ? that 
he had not married the woman he fitncied he 
knew so well, but some quite different person ? 
Ill-temper, discontent, he could have endured 
and dealt with, but a terrible mistrust and doubt 
had come into his heart, he did not know how 
or when, and had nearly broken it. 

A gloom seemed hanging over this sad house ; 
a sort of hopeless dreariness. Do you remem- 
ber how cheerful and contented Caroline had 
been at first ?. By degrees she began to get a 
little tired now and then — a little weary. All 
these things grew just a little insipid and dis- 
tasteful. Do you know that torture to which 
some poor slaves have been subjected ? I be- 
lieve it is only a drop of water falling at regu- 
lar intervals upon their heads. At first they 
scarcely heed it, and talk and laugh ; then they 
become silent; and still the drop falls and drips. 
And then they moan and beg for mercy, and 
still it falls ; and then scream out with horror, 
and cry out for death, for this is more than they 
can bear — but still it goes on falling. I have read 
this somewhere, and it seems to me that this ap- 
plies to Caroline Tourneur, and to the terrible 
life which had begun for her. 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



Her health failed, and she daily lost strength 
and interest in the things by which she was sur- 
rounded ; then they became wearisome. Her 
tired frame was not equal to the conStant exer- 
tions she had imjjosed upon herself; from being 
wearisome, they grew hateful to her ; and, one 
by one, she gave them np. Then the terrible 
sameness of a life in which her heart was no 
longer set, seemed to crush her down day by 
day ; a life never lived from high and honorable 
motives, but for mean and despicable ends ; a 
life lofty and noble to those who, with great 
hearts and good courage, knew how to look be- 
yond it, and not to care for the things of the 
world, but dull and terrible beyond expression 
to a woman whose whole soul was set amidst 
the thorns and thistles, and who had only rush- 
ed by chance into this narrow path blindfold 
with passion and despair. 

Now she has torn the bandage off her eyes ; 
now she is struggling to get out of it, and beat- 
ing against the thorns, and wearily trying to 
trace back her steps. Elly used to cry out in 
her childish way. Caroline, who is a woman, 
is silent, and utters not one word of complaint ; 
only her cheeks fall away and her eyes glare 
out of great black rings. 

Elly came home blooming and well, and was 
shocked and frightened at first to see the change 
which had come over her mother. She did not 
ask the reason of it, but, as we all do sometimes, 
accepted witliout much speculation the course 
of events. Things come about so simply and 
naturally that people are often in the midst of 
strangest histories without having once thought 
so, or wondered that it should be. Very soon 
all the gloomy house, though she did not knoAv 
it, seemed brightened and cheered by her coming 
home. Even Mme. Jacob relented a little when 
she heard Tou-Tou and Lou-Lou's shouts of 
laughter one day coming through the open win- 
dow. The three girls were at work in the gar- 
den. I do not know that they were doing much 
good except to themselves. It was a keen, clear, 
brilliant winter morning, and the sun out of 
doors put out the smouldering fires within. 

The little girls were laughing and working 
with all their hearts. Elly was laugliing too, 
and tearing up dried old plants, and heaping 
broken flower-pots together. Almost happy, al- 
most contented, almost good And there 

is many a worse state of mind than this. She 
was sighing as she laughed, for she was think- 
ing of herself, pacing round and round the neg- 
lected garden once not so long ago ; then she 
thought of the church on the hill-top, then of 
Will Dampier, and then of John, and then she 
came upon a long wriggling worm, and she 
jumped away and forgot to be sentimental. 
Besides working in the garden, she set to teach- 
ing the children in her mother's school. What 
this girl turned her hand to, she always did well 
and thoroughly. She even went to visit some 
of tlie sick people, and though she never took 
kindly to these exercises, the children liked to 
say their lessons to her, and the sick people 



were glad when she came in. She was very 
popular with them all ; perhaps the reason was, 
that she did not do tliese things from a sense of 
duty, aiid did not look upon the poor and the 
sick as so many of us do, as a selfish means for 
self-advancement ; she went to them because it 
was more convenient for her to go than for any 
body else — she only thought of their needs, 
grumbled at the trouble she was taking, and it 
never occurred to her that this unconsciousness 
was as good as a good conscience. 

JMy dear little Elizabeth ! I am glad that at 
last she is behaving pretty well. Tourneur 
strokes her head sometimes, and holds out his 
kind hand to her when she comes into his room. 
His eyes follow her fondly as if he were her fa- 
ther. One day she told him about William 
Dampier. He sighed as he heard the story. 
It was all ordained for the best, he said to him- 
self. But he would have been glad to know 
her happy, and he patted her cheek and went 
into his study. 

Miss Dampicr's letters were Elly's best treas- 
ures : how eagerly she took them from Clemen- 
tine's hands! how she tore them open and read 
them once, twice, thrice! No novels interest 
people so much as their own — a story in which 
you have ever so little a part to enact thrills, and 
excites, and amuses to the very last. You 
don't skip the reflections; the descriptions do 
not weary. I can fancy Elly sitting in a heap 
on the floor, and spelling out Miss Dampier's ; 
Tou-Tou and Lou-Lou looking on with respect- 
ful wonder. 

But suddenly the letters seemed to her to 
change. They became short and reserved ; 
they were not interesting any more. Looked 
for so anxiously, they only brought disappoint- 
ment when they came, and no word of the peo- 
ple about whom she longed to hear, no mention 
of their doings. Even Lady Dampier's name 
would have been welcome. But there was noth- 
ing. It was in A'ain she read and re-read so 
eagerly, longing and thirsting for news. 

Things were best as they were, she told her- 
self a hundred times ; and so, though poor Elly 
sighed and wearied, and though her heart sank, 
she did not speak to any one of her trouble : it 
was a Avholesome one, she told herself, one that 
must be surmounted and overcome by patience. 
Sometimes her work seemed ahnost greater than 
her strength, and then she would go up stairs 
and cry a little bit and pity heiself, and sop up 
all her tears, and then run round and round the 
garden once or twice, and come back, with bright 
eyes and glowing cheeks, to chatter witli Fran- 
^oise, to look after her mother and Stephen Tour- 
neur, to scold the pupils and make jokes at them, 
to romp with the little girls. 

One day she found her letter waiting on the 
hall-table, and tore it open with a trembling 

hope AuntJean described the weather, 

the pig-sty, made valuable remarks on the news 
contained in the daily papers, signed herself 
ever her affectionate old friend. And that 
was all. Was not that enough ? Elly asked 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



herself, with such a sigh. Slie was reading it 
over in the dooi--way of the sallc-a-maiiger, 
bonneted and cloaked, with all the remains of 
the midday meal congealing and disordered on 
the table. 

" Es-tii prete, Elizabeth?" said Tou-Tou, 
coming in with a little basket — there were no 
stones in it this time. " Tiens, voila ce que 
ma tante envoie a cette pauvre Madame Jonnes." 

Madame Jonncs was only Mrs. Jones, only 
an old woman dying in a melancholy room 
hard by — in a melancholy room in a deserted 
street, where there were few houses, but long 
walls, vihere the mould was feeding, and yellow 
placards were pasted and defaced and flapping 
in shreds, and where Elly, picking her little steps 
over the stones, saw blades of grass growing be- 
tween them. There was a chantier — a great 
wood-yard — on one side ; now and then a dark 
door-way leading into a black and filthy court, 
out of which a gutter would come with evil 
smells, flowing murkily into the street ; in the 
distance, two figures passing ; a child in a night- 
cap, thumping a doll upon a curbstone ; a dog 
snufiing at a heap ; at the end of the street the 
placarded backs of tall liouses built upon a rising 
ground ; a man in a blouse wheeling a truck, 
and singing out dismally ; and meanwhile, good 
old Mrs. Jones was dying close at hand, under 
this black and crumbling door-way, in a room 
opening with cracked glass-doors upon the yard. 

She was lying alone upon her bed ; the nurse 
they had sent to her \vas gossiping with the por- 
ter in his lodge. Kindly and dimly her eyes 
opened and smiled somehow at the girl, out of 
the faded bed, out of a mystery of pain, of grief, 
and solitude. 

It was a mystery indeed, which Elizabeth, 
standing beside it, could not understand, though 
she herself had lain so lately and so resignedly 
upon a couch of sickness. Age, abandonment, 
seventy years of life — how many of grief and 
trouble ? As she looked at the dying, indifferent 
face, she saw that they were almost ended. And 
in the midst of her pity and shrinking compas- 
sion Elly thought to herself that she would 
change all with the sick woman, at that min- 
ute, to have endured, to have surmounted so 
much. 

She sat with her till the dim twilight came 
through the dirty and patched panes of the win- 
dows. Even as she waited there her thoughts 
went wandering, and siie was trying to picture 
to herself faces and scenes that she could not 
see. She knew that the shadows were creeping 
round about those whom she loved, as quietly as 
they were rising here in this sordid room. It 
was their evening as it was hers ; and then she 
said to herself that they who made up so large 
a part of her life must, perforce, think of her 
sometimes : she was part of their lives, even 
though they should utterly neglect and forget 
and abandon her; even though they should 
never meet again from this day; though she 
should never hear their names so much as men- 
tioned ; though their paths should separate for- 



ever. For a time they had travelled the same 
road — ah ! she was thankful even for so much ; 
and she unconsciously pressed the wasted hand 
she was holding ; and then her heart thrilled 
witli tender, unselfish gladness as the feeble 
fingers tried to clasp hers, and the faltering 
whisper tried to bless. 

She came home sad and tired from her sick 
woman's bedside, thinking of the last kind gleam 
of the eyes as she left the room. She went 
straight up stairs and took off her shabby dress, 
and found another, and poured out water and 
bathed her face. Her heart was beating, her 
hands trembling. She was remembering and 
regretting ; she was despairing and longing, 
and yet resigned, as she had learned to be of 
late. She leaned against the wall for a minute 
befoi-e she went down ; she was dressed in the 
blue dress, with her favorite little locket hang- 
ing round her neck. She put her hand tiredly 
to her head ; and so she stood, as she used to 
stand when she was a child, in a sort of dream, 
and almost out of the world. And as she was 
waiting a knock came at the door. It was 
Clementine who knocked, and who said, in the 
sing-song way in which Frenchwomen speak — 
"Mademoiselle, voila pour vous." 

It was too dark to see any thing except that it 
was another familiar-looking letter. Elly made 
up her mind not to be disappointed any more, 
and went down stairs leisurely to the study, 
where she knew she should find Tourneur's 
lamp alight. And she crossed the hall and 
turned the handle of the door, and opened it and 
went in. 

The lamp with its green shade on the table 
lit up one part of the room, but in the duski- 
ness, standing by the stove and talking eagerly, 
were two people whom she could not distin- 
guish very plainly. One of them was Tourneur, 
Avho looked round and came to meet her, and 
took her hand ; and the other .... 

Suddenly her heart began to beat so that her 
breath was taken away. What was this ? Who 
was this? — What chance had she come upon ? 
Such mad hopes as hers were they ever fulfill- 
ed ? Was this moment, so sudden, so unlooked 
for, the one for which slie had despaired and 
longed, for which she had waited and lived 
through an eternity of grief? Was it John 
Dampier into whose hand Tourneur put hers ? 
Was she still asleep and dreaming one of those 
delighting but terrible dreams from which, ah 
me ! she must awake ? In this dream she heard 
the pasteur saying, " II a bien des choses a vous 
dire, Elizabeth," and then he seemed to go away 
and to leave them. 

In this dream, bewildered and trembling, with 
a desperate effort, she pulled her hand away, 
and said: "What does it mean? Where is 
Tishy ? Why do you come, John ? Why don't 
you leave me in peace ?" 

And then it was a dream no longer, but a 
truth and a reality, when John began to speak 
in his familiar way, and she heard his voice, and 
saw him before her, and — yes, it was he ; and 



276 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



he said : " Tishy and I have had a qnarrel, Elly. 
We are nothing to one another any more, and 
so I have come to you — to — to — tell you that I 
have behaved like a fool all this time." And 
he turned very red as he spoke, and then he was 
silent, and then he took both her hands and 
spoke again : " Tell me, dear," he said, looking 
up into her sweet eyes — " Elly, tell me, would 
you — won't you — be content with a fool for a 
husband?" And Elizabeth Gilmour only an- 
swered, "Oh John, John!" and burst into a 
giieat flood of happy tears : tears which fell rain- 
ing peace and calm after this long drought and 
misery; tears which seemed to speak to him, 
and made him sad, and yet happier than he had 
ever dreamt of or imagined ; tears whicli quiet- 
ed her, soothed her, and healed all her troub- 
les. 

Before John went away that night, Elly read 
Miss Dampier's letter, whicli explained his ex- 
planations. The old lady wrote in a state of 
incoherent excitement. It was some speech of 
Will's which had brought the whole thing about. 

" What did he say ?" Elly asked, looking up 
from the letter with her shining eyes. 

Sir John said: "He asked me if I did not 
remember that church on the hill, at Boatstown ? 
We were all out in the garden, by the old statue 
of the nymph. Tishy suddenly stopped, and 
turned upon me, and cried out. When was I last 
at Boatstown ? And then I was obliged to con- 
fess, and we had a disagreeable scene enough, 
and she appealed to AVilliam — gave me my 
conge, and I was not sorry, Elly." 

" But had you never told her about — ?" 

" It was from sheer honesty that I was silent," 
said Sir John ; "a man who sincerely wishes 
to keep his word doesn't say, ' Madam, I like 
some one else, but I will marry you if you insist 
upon it;' only the worst of it is, that we were 
both uncomfortable, and I now find she suspect- 
ed me the whole time. She sent me a note in 
the evening. Look here." 

The note said : — 

"I have been thinking about what I said just 
now in the garden. I am moi-e than ever de- 
cided that it is best we two should part. But I 
do not choose to say good-bye to you in an an- 
gry spirit, and so this is to tell you that I for- 
give yon all the injustice of your conduct to me. 
Every body seems to have been in a league to 
deceive me, and I have not found out one true 
friend among you all. How could you for one 
moment imagine that I should wish to marry a 
man who preferred another woman ? You may 
have been influenced and worked upon : but for 
all that I should never be able to place confi- 
dence in you again, and I feel it is best and hap- 
piest for us both that all should be at an end be- 
tween us. 

" You will not wonder that, though I try to 
forgive you, I can not help feeling indignant 
at the way in which I liave been used. I 
could never understand exactly what was going 
on in your mind. You were silent, you equiv- 



ocated ; and not you only, every body seems to 
have been thinking of themselves, and never , 
once for me. Even William, who professes to 
care for me still, only spoke by chance, and re- 
vealed the whole history. When he talked to 
you about Boatstown, som^ former suspicions of 
mine were confirmed, and by the most fortu- 
nate chance two people have been saved from a 
whole lifetime of regret. 

" I will not trust myself to think of the way 
in which I should have been bartered had I only 
discovered the truth when it was too late. If I 
speak plainly, it is in justice to myself, and from 
no unkindness to you; for though I-bid you 
farewell, I can still sincerely sign myself, yours 
afltectionately, LjETItia." 

Elly read the letter, and gave it back to him, 
and sighed, then smiled, then sighed again, and 
then went on with Miss Dampier's epistle. 

For some time past, Jean Dampier wrote, she 
had noticed a growing suspicion and estrange- 
ment between the engaged couple. John was 
brusque and morose at times, Tisliy cross and 
defiant. He used to come over on his brown 
mare and stop at the cottage gate, and ask 
about Elly, and then interrupt her before she 
could answer and :hange the talk. He used to 
give her messages to send and then retract them. 
He was always philosophizing and discoursing 
about first aflfections. La;titia, too, used to come 
and ask about Elly. 

Miss Dampier hoped that John himself would 
j put an end to this false situation. Slie did not 
know how to write about either of them to 
Elly. Her perplexities had seemed unending. 

" But I al,<o never heard that you came to 
Boatstown," Elly said. 

"And yet I saw you there," said John, 
"standing at the end of the pier." And then 
he went on to tell her a great deal more, and to 
confess all that he had thought wliile he was 
waiting for her. 

Elly passed her hand across her eyes with the 
old familiar action. 

" And you came to Boatstown, and you went 
away when you read Tishy's writing, and you 
had the heart to be angry with me ?" she said. 

"I was worried, and out of temper," said 
John. " I felt I was doing wrong when I ran 
away from Tishy. I blamed you because I was 
in a rage with myself. I can't bear to think of 
it. But I was punished, Elly. Were you ever 
jealous?" She laughed and nodded her head. 
" I dare say not," he went on ; " when I sailed 
away and saw you standing so confidentially 
with Will Dampier, I won't try and tell you 
what I suffered. I could bear to give you up — 
but to see you another man's wife — Elly, I know 
you never were jealous, or you would understand 
what I felt at that moment." 

When their tete-a-tete was over they went into 
the next room. All the family congratulated 
them, Madame Tourneur among the rest ; she 
was ill and tired that evening, and lying on the 
vellow Utrecht velvet sofa. But it was nwk- 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



ward for them and uncomfortable, and John 
went home early to his inn. As Eily went up 
to bed that night, Fran9oise brought her one 
other piece of news— Madame Jonnes was dead. 
They had sent to accjuaint the police. But 
Elly was so happy, that, though she tried, she 
could not be less happy because of this. All 
the night slie lay awake, giving thanks and 
praise, and saying over to herself, a hundred 
times, " At last — at last !" 

At last ! after all this long rigmarole. At 
last ! after all these despairing adjectives and 
adverbs. At last ! after all these thousands of 
hours of grief and despair. Did not that one 
minute almost repay her for them all? She 
went on telling herself, as I have said, that this 
was a dream — from which she need never awake. 
And I, who am writing her story, wonder if it 
is so — wonder if even to such dreams as these 
there may not be a waking one day, when all 
the visions that surround us shall vanish and 
disappear forever into eternal silence and obliv- 
ion. Dear faces — voices whose tones speak to 
us even more fixmiliarly than the tender words 
which they utter ! It would, in truth, seem al- 
most too hard to bear, if we did not guess — if 
we were not told — how the love which makes 
such things so dear to us endures in the eterni- 
ty out of which they have passed. 

Happiness like EUy's is so vague and so great 
that it is impossible to try to describe it. To a 
nature like hers, full of tenderness, faithful and 
eager, it came like a sea, ebbing and flow- 
ing with waves, and with the sun shining and 
sparkling on the water, and lighting the fath- 
oms below. I do not mean to say that my 
poor little heroine was such a tremendous crea- 
ture that she could compass the deptlis and wide 
extent of a sea in her heart. Love is not a 
thing which belongs to any one of us individual- 
ly ; it is everywhere, here and all round about, 
and sometimes people's hearts are opened, and 
they guess at it, and realize that it is theirs. 

Dampier came early next morning, looking 
kind and happy and bright, to fetch her for a 
walk ; Elly was all blue ribbons and blue eyes ; 
her feet seemed dancing against her will, she 
could hardly walk quietly along. Old Fran- 
9oise looked after them as they walked off to- 
wards the Bois de Boulogne ; Tou-Tou and 
Lou-Lou peeped from their bed-room window. 
The sun was shining, the sky had mounted 
Elly's favorite colors. 



CHAPTER XIL 



Oh blessed rest, oli roy.il niglit ! 

Wherefore seemeth the time so long 
Till I see yon stars in Iheir fullest light, 

And list to their loudest song 1 

When I first saw Lady Dampier, she had 
only been married a day or two. I had been 
staying at Guildford, and I drove over one day 
to see my old friend Jean Dampier. I came 
across the hills and by Coombe Bottom and 



along the lanes, and tlirougli the little village 
street, and when I reached the cottage I saw 
Elly, of whom I had heard so much, standing 
at the gate. She was a very beautiful young 
woman, tall and straight, with the most charm- 
ing blue eyes, a sweet frank voice, and a tak- 
ing manner, and an expression on her face that 
I can not describe. She had a blue ribbon in 
her hair, which was curling in a crop. She 
lield her hat full of flowers : behind her the lat- 
tices of the cottage were gleaming in the sun ; 
the creepers were climbing and flowering about 
the porch. 

All about rose a spring incense of light, of 
color, of perfume. The country folks were at 
work in the fields and on the hills. The light 
shone beyond the church spire, beyond the cot- 
tages and glowing trees. Inside the cottage, 
through the lattice, I could see Aunt Jean nod- 
ding over her knitting. 

She threw down her needles to welcome me. 
Of course I was going to stay to tea — and I said 
that was my intention in coming. As the sun 
set, the clouds liegan to gather, coming quickly 
we knew not from whence : but we were safe 
and dry, sitting by the lattice and gossiping, 
and meanwhile Miss Dampier went on with her 
work. 

Elly had been spending the day with her, she 
told me. Sir John was to come for her, and pres- 
ently he arrived, dripping wet, through the April 
shower which was now pouring over the fields. 

The door of tiie porch opens into the little 
dining-room, where the tea was laid : a wood- 
fire was crackling in the tall cottage chimney. 
Elizabeth was smiling hy the hearth, toasting 
cakes with one hand and holding a book in the 
other, when the young man walked in. 

He came into the room where we were sitting 
and shook hands with us both, and then he laugh- 
ed and said he must go and dry himself by the 
fire, and he went back. 

So Jean Dampier and I sat mumbling con- 
fidences in the inner room, and John and Elly 
were chattering to one another by the burning 
wood logs. 

The door was open which led, with a step, 
into the dining-room, where the wood-fire was 
burning. Darkness was setting' in. The rain 
was over, the clouds swiftly breaking and cours- 
ing away, and such a bright, mild-eyed little 
star peeped in through the lattice at us two old 
maids in the window. It was a shame to hear, 
but how could we help it ? Out of the fire-lit 
room the voices came to us, and when we ceased 
chattering for an instant, we heard them so 
plainly : — 

"I saw Will to-day," said a A'oice. ' "He 
was talking about LaBtitia. I think there will 
be some news of them before long. Should you 
be glad?" 

" Ah ! so glad. I don't want to be the only 
happy woman in the world." 

"My dearest Elly!" said the kind voice. 
"And you will never regret — and aro you 
happy ?" 



278 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



"Can you ask?" snid Elly. "Come into 
the porch, and I will tell you." And then 
there was a gust of fresh rain-scented air, and a 
soft rustle, and the closing click of a door. And 
then we saw them pass the window, and Jean 
clasped my hand very tightly, and flung her 
arms round my neck, and gave me a delighted 
kiss. 

"You dear, silly woman," said I, "how glad 
I am they are so happy togetlier!" 

"I hope she won't catch cold," said Jean, 
looking at the damp walks. "Could not you 
take out a shawl ?" 

"Let her catch cold!" said I; "and in the 
mean time give me some tea, if you jilease. 
Kemcmber, I have got to drive home in the 
dark." 

So we went into the next room. Jean rang 
for the candles. The old silver candlesticks 
were brought in by Kitty on a tray. 

" Don't shut the curtains," said Miss Dam- 
pier; "and come here, Mary, and sit by the 
fire." 

"While Elizabeth and John Dampier were 
wandering np and down in the dark damp gar- 
den, Jenny and I were comfortably installed 
by the fire, drinking hot, sweet tea, and eating 
toasted cakes, and preserves, and cream. I say 
ice, but that is out of modesty, for she had no 
appetite, whereas I was very hungry. 

" Heigh-ho !" said Jean, looking at the fire. 
"It's a good thing to be young, Mary. Tell 
me honestly : what would you give — " 

"To be walking in the garden with young 
Dampier," said I (and I burst out laughing), 
" without a cloak, or an umbrella, or india-rub- 
bers? My dear Jenny, where are your five 
wits ?" 

"Where indeed?" said Jean, with another 
sigh. "Yet I can remember when you used 
to cry instead of laughing over such things, 
Mary." 

Her sadness had made me sad. "Whilst the 
young folks were whispering outside, it seemed 
as if we two old women were sitting by the fii'e 
and croaking the elegy of all youth, and love, 
and happiness. "The night is coming for you 
and me, Jenny," I said. " Dear me, how quick- 
ly!" 

"The night is at hand," echoed she, softly, 
and she passed her fingers across her eyes, and 
then sighed, and got up slowly and went to the 
door which opened into the porch. And then 
I heard her call me. "Come here !" she said, 
"Mary!" And then I, too, rose stiffly from 
my chair, and went to her. The clouds had 
cleared away. From the little jiorch, where 
the sweet-brier was climbing, we could see all 
the myriad worlds of heaven, alight and blaz- 
ing, and circling in their infinite tracks. An 
awful, silent harmony, power and peace, and 
light and life eternal — a shining benediction 
seemed to be there hanging above our heads. 
"This is the night," she whispered, and took 
my hand in hers. 

And so this is the end of the storv of Eliza- 



beth Gilmour, whose troubles, as I have said, 
were not very great ; who is a better woman, I 
fancy, than if her life had been the hajjpy life 
she prophesied to herself. Deeper tones and 
understandings must have come to her out of 
the profoundness of her griefs, such as they 
were. For when other troubles came, as they 
come to all as years go by, she had learned to 
endure and to care for others, and to be valiant 
and to be brave. And I do not like her the 
less because I have spoken the truth about her, 
and written to her as the woman she is. 

I went to Paris a little time ago. I saw the 
old grass -grown court; I saw Fran^oise and 
Anthony, and Tou-Tou and Lou-Lou, who had 
grown up two pretty and modest and smiling 
young girls. The old lady at Asnieres had done 
what was expected, and died and left her fortune 
to Ton - Ton, her goddaughter. (The little 
Chinese pagoda is still to let.) Poor Madame 
Jacob did not, however, enjoy this good luck, 
for she died suddenly one day, some months be- 
fore it came to them. But you may be sure 
that the little girls had still a father in Tour- 
neur, and Caroline too was very kind to them 
in her uncertain waj'. She loved them because 
they were so unlike herself— so gentle, and dull, 
and guileless. Anthony asked me a great many 
questions about Elizabeth and her home, and 
told me that he meant to marry Lou-Lou event- 
ually. He is thin and pale, with a fine head 
like his father, and a quiet manner. He works 
very hard, he earns very little — he is one of the 
best men I ever knew in my life. As I talked 
to him, I could not but compare him to Will 
Dampier and to John, who are also good men. 
But then they are prosperous and well-to-do, 
with well-stored granaries, with vineyards and 
fig-trees, with children growing up round them. 
I was wondering if Elizabeth, who chose her 
husband because she loved him, and for no bet- 
ter reason, might not have been as wise if she 
could have appreciated the gifts better than haji- 
piness, than well - stored granaries, than vine- 
yards, than fig-trees, which Anthony held in his 
liand to offer? Who shall say? Self-denial 
and holy living are better than ease and pros- 
perity ? But for that reason some people w ill- 
fully turn away from the mercies of Heaven, 
and call the angels devils, and its gracious boun- 
ties temptation. > 

Anthony has answered this question to him- 
self, as we all must do. His fiUher looks old 
and worn. I fear there is trouble still under 
his roof — trouble, whatever it may be, which is 
borne with Christian and courageous resignation 
by the master of the house : he seem^, somehow, 
in these later years to have risen beyond it. A 
noble reliance and peace are his ; holy thoughts 
keep him company. The afteciion between him 
and his son is very touching. 

Madame Tourneur looks haggard and weary : 
and one day, when I happened to tell her I was 
going away, she gasped out. suddenly — "Ah! 
what would I not give — " and then was silent 



THE STORY OF ELIZABETH. 



279 



and turned aside. But she remains with her 
husband, which ia more that I should have given 
her credit for. 

And so, when the appointed hour came, I 
drove off, and all the personages of my story 
came out to bid me farewell. I looked back 
for the last time at the court-yard with the hens 
pecketting round about the kitchen door; at the 
garden with the weeds and flowers tangling to- 



gether in the sun ; at the shadows falling across 
the stones of the yard. I could fancy Elizabeth 
a prisoner within those walls, beating like a bird 
against the bars of the cage, and revolting and 
struggling to be free. 

The old house is done away with and exists 
no longer. It was pulled down by order of the 
Government, and a grand new boulevard runs 
right across the place where it stood. 



TO ESTHER. 



TO 

or. be B. €• iH. 0. 

a. be B. anb !^. C 

A REMEMBRANCE. 

March, 18G9. 



TO ESTHER 



1859—60. 



'Tis Rome-work, made to match.' 



The first time that I ever knew you was at 
Eome, one winter's evening. I had walked 
through the silent streets — I see them now — dark 
with black shadows, lighted by the blazing stars 
overhead and by the lamps dimly flickering be- 
fore the shrines at street corners. After cross- 
ing the Spanish-place I remember turning into 
a narrow alloy and coming pi'esently to a great 
black archway, whicli led to a glimmering court. 
A figure of the Virgin stood with outstretched 
arms above the door of your house, and the light 
burning at her feet dimly played upon tlie stone, 
worn and stained, of which the walls were built. 
Through the archway came a glimpse of the 
niglit sky above the court-yard, shining wonder- 
fully with splendid stars ; and I also caught the 
plashing sound of a fountain flowing in the 
darkness. I groped my way up the broad stone 
staircase, only lighted by the friendly star-shine, 
stumbling and knocking my shins against those 
ancient steps, up which two centuries of men 
and women had clambered ; and at last, ringing 
at a curtained door, 1 found myself in a hall, 
and presently ushered through a dining-room, 
where the cloth was laid, and announced at the 
drawing-room door as Smith. 

It was a long room with many windows, and 
cabinets and tables along the walls, with a tall 
carved mantel-piece, at which you were stand- 
ing, and a Pompeian lamp burning on a table 
near you. Would you care to hear what man- 
ner of woman I saw ; what impression I got 
from you as we met for the first time together? 
In after days, light, mood, circumstance, may 
modify this first image more or less, but the 
germ of life is in it — the identical presence — 
and I fancy it is rarely improved by keeping, 
by painting up, with love, or dislike, or long 
use, or weariness, as the case may be. Be this 
as it may, I think I knew you as well after the 
first five minutes' acquaintance as I do now. I 
saw an ugly woman, whose looks I liked some- 
how ; thick brows, sallow face, a tall and 
straight-made figure, honest eyes that had no 
particular merit besides, dark hair, and a pleas- 
ant, cordial smile. And somehow, as I looked 
at you and heard you talk, I seemed to be aware 



of a frank spirit, uncertain, blind, wayward, ten- 
der, under this somewhat stern exterior ; and so, 
I repeat, I liked you, and, making a bow, I said 
I was afraid I was before my time. 

" I'm afraid it is my father who is after his," 
you said. "Mr. Halbert is coming, and he, too, 
is often late;" and so we went on talking for 
about ten minutes. 

Yours is a kindly manner, a sad-toned voice; 
I know not if your life has been a happy one ; 
you are well disposed towards every soul you 
come across ; you love to be loved, and try with 
a sweet artless art to win and charm over each 
man or woman that you meet. I saw that 30U 
liked me, that you felt at your ease with me, 
that you held me not quite your equal, and might 
pei'haps laugh at, as well as with me. But I 
did not care. My aim in life, heaven knows, 
has not been to domineer, to lay down the law, 
and triumph over others, least of all over those 
I like. 

The Colonel arrived presently, with his white 
hair trimly brushed and his white neckcloth 
neatly tied. He greeted me with great friend- 
liness and cordiality. You have got his charm 
of manner ; but with you, my dear, it is not 
manner only, for tliere is loyalty and heartiness 
shining in your face, and sincerity ringing in 
every tone of your voice. As for the Colonel, 
your father, if I mistake not, he is a little shriv- 
elled-up old gentleman, with a machine inside 
to keep him going,and outside a well-cut coat and 
a well-bred air and a certain knowledge of the 
world, to get on through life with. However, 
this is not the way to speak to a young lady about 
her father ; and besides it is you, and not he, in 
whom I take the interest which prompts these 
maudlin pages. 

Mr. Halbert and little Latham, the artist, were 
the only other guests. You did not look round 
when Halbert was announced, but went on 
speaking to Latham, with a strange flush in 
your face ; until Halbert had, with great em- 
pressement, made his way through the chairs and 
tables, and had greeted, rather than been greet- 
ed by, you. 

So thinks I to myself, concerning certain vague 



284 



TO ESTHER. 



notions I had already begun to entertain, I am 
rather late in the field, and the city is taken and 
has already hoisted the conqueror's colors. Per- 
haps those red flags might have been mine had 
I come a little sooner ; who knows ? " i>e tout 
laurier un poison est ['essence," says the French- 
man ; and my brows may be as well unwreathed. 

" I came up stairs with the dinner," Mr. Hal- 
bert was saying. "It reassured me as to my 
punctuality. I rather pique myself on my 
punctuality, Colonel." 

"And I'm afraid I have been accusing you 
of being always late," you said, as if it were a 
confession. 

" Have you thought so. Miss Olliver ?" cried 
Halbert. 

"Dinner, sir," said Baker, opening the door. 

All dinner-time Halbert, who has very high 
spirits, talked and laughed without ceasing. 
You, too, laughed, listened, looked very happy, 
and got up with a smile at last, leaving us to 
drink our wine. The Colonel presently pro- 
posed cigars. 

"In that case I shall go and talk to your 
daughter in the drawing-room," Halbert said. 
"I'm promised to Lady Parker's to-night; it 
would never do to go there smelling all over of 
smoke. I must be off in half-an-hour," he add- 
ed, looking at his watch, 

I, too, had been asked to the tea-party, and I 
was rather surprised that Halbert should be in 
such a desperate hurry to get there. Talking 
to Miss Olliver in the next room I could very 
well understand ; but leaving her to rush off to 
Lady Parker's immediately, did not accord with 
the little theories I had been laying down. 
Could I have been mistaken ? In this case it 
seemed to me this would be the very woman to 
suit me — (you see I am speaking without any 
reserve, and simply describing the abrupt little 
events as they occurred) — and I thought, who 
knows that there may not be a chance for me 
yet ? But, by the time my cigar had crumbled 
into smoke and ashes, it struck me that my lit- 
tle castle had also wreathed away and vanished. 
Going into the drawing-i-oom, where the lamps 
were swinging in the dimness, and the night 
without streaming in through the uncurtained 
windows, we found you in your white dress, 
sitting alone at one of them. Mr. Halbert was 
gone, you said ; he went out by the other door. 
And then 3'ou were silent again, staring out at 
the stars with dreamy eyes. The Colonel rang 
for tea, and chirped away very pleasantly to 
Latham by the fire. I looked at you now and 
then, and could not help surprising your thoughts 
somehow, and knowing that I had not been mis- 
taken after all. There you sat, making simple 
schemes of future happiness ; you could not, 
would not, look beyond the present. You were 
very calm, happy, full of peaceful reliance. 
Your world was alight with shining stars, great 
big shining meteors, all flaring up as they usual- 
ly do before going out with a splutter at the end 
of the entertainment. People who are in love 
I have always found very much alike ; and now, 



having settled that you belonged to that crack- 
brained community, it was not difficult to guess 
at what was going on in your mind. 

I, too, as I have said, had been favored with 
a card for Lady Parker's rout ; and as you were 
so absent and ill-inclined to talk, and the Colo- 
nel was anxious to go off and play whist at his 
club, I thought I might as well follow in Hal- 
bert's traces, and gratify any little curiosity I 
might feel as to his behavior and way of going 
on in your absence. I found that Latham was 
also going to her ladyship's. As we went down 
stairs together Latham said, "It was too bad 
of Halbert to break up the party and go off at 
that absurd hour. I didn't say I was going, 
because I thought his rudeness might strike 
them." 

" But surely," said I, " Mr. Halbert seems at 
home there, and may come and go as he likes ?" 
Latham shrugged his shoulders. "I like the 
girl ; I hope she is not taken in by him. He 
has been very thick all the winter in other quar- 
ters. Lady Parker's niece, Lady Fanny Fare- 
ham, was going to marry him, they said ; but 
I know very little of him. He is much too 
great a swell to be on intimate terms with a 
disreputable little painter like myself. "What a 
night it is !" As he spoke we came out into the 
street again, our shadows falling on the stones ; 
the Virgin overhead still watching, the lamp 
burning faithfully, tlic solemn night waning on. 
Lady Parker had lodgings in the Corso, I felt 
almost ashamed of stepping from the great en- 
tertainment without into the close racketing lit- 
tle tea-party that was clattering on within. We 
came in, in the middle of a jangling tune, the 
company spinning round and round. Halbert, 
twirling like a Dervish, was almost the first per- 
son I saw ; he was flushed, and looked exceed- 
ingly handsome, and his tall shoulders over- 
topped most of the other heads. As I watched 
him I thought with great complacency that if 
any woman cared for me, it would not be for 
my looks. No ! no ! what are mere good 
looks compared to those mental qualities which, 
etc., etc. Presently, not feeling quite easy in 
my mind about these said mental qualities, I 
again observed that it was still better to be 
liked for one's self than for one's mental quali- 
ties ; by which time I turned my attention once 
more to Mr. Halbert. The youth was devoting 
himself most assiduously to a very beautiful, 
oldish young lady, in a green gauzy dress ; and 
I now, with a mixture of satisfaction and vexa- 
tion, recognized tlie very same looks and tones 
which had misled me at dinner. 

I left him still at it and walked home, won- 
dering at the great law of natural equality which 
seems to level all mankind to one standard, not- 
withstanding all those artificial ones which we 
ourselves have raised. Here was a successful 
youth, with good looks and good wits and posi- 
tion and fortune ; and here was I, certainly no 
wonder, insignificant, and plain and. poor, and 
of commonplace intelligence, and as well satis- 
fied with my own possessions, such as they were, 



TO ESTHER. 



285 



as he, Halbert, could be with the treasures- a 
prodigal fortune had showered upon him. Here 
was I, judging him, and taking his measure as 
accurately as he could take mine, were it. worth 
his while to do so. Here was I, walking home 
under the stars, while he was flirting and whis- 
pering with Lady Fanny, and both our nights 
sped on. Constellations sinking slowly, the 
day approaching through tlie awful realms of 
apace, hours waning, life going by for us both 
alike : both of us men waiting together amidst 
tliese awful surroundings. 

You and I met often after tliis first meeting — 
in churches where tapers were lighting and 
heavy censers swinging — on the .Pincio, in the 
narrow, deep-colored streets: it was not al- 
ways chance only which brought me so con- 
stantly into your presence. You yourself were 
the chance, at least, and I the blind follower of 
fortune. 

All around about Rome there are ancient 
gardens lying basking in tlie sun. Gardens 
and villas built long since by dead cardinals 
and popes; terraces, with glinting shadows, 
with honeysuckle clambering in desolate luxu- 
riance ; roses flowering and fading and falling 
in showers on the pathways ; and terraces and 
marble steps yellow with age. Lonely fount- 
ain splash in their basins, statues of fauns and 
slender nymphs stand out against the solemn 
horizon of blue hills and crimson-streaked sky ; 
of cypress-trees and cedars, with the sunset 
showing through their stems. At home I lead 
a very busy, anxious life : the beauty and peace 
of these Italian villas fill me with inexpressible 
satisfaction and gratitude towards those mould- 
ering pontiff's, whose magnificent liberality has 
secured such placid resting-places for genera- 
tions of weary men. Taking a long walk out 
of Rome one day in the early spring, I came to 
tiie gates of one of these gardens. I remember 
seeing a carriage waiting in the shade of some 
cedar-trees ; hard by horses with drooping 
heads, and servants smoking as they waited. 
This was no uncommon sight ; the English are 
forever on their rounds ; but somehow, on this 
occasion, I thought I recognized one of the 
men, and instead of passing by, as had been 
my intention, I turned in at the half-opened 
gate, which the angels witli the flaming swords 
had left unguarded and unlocked for once, and, 
after a few minutes' walk, I came upon the Eve 
I looked for. 

You were sitting on some time-worn steps ; 
you wore a green silk dress, and your brown 
hair, with the red tints in it, was all ablaze with 
the light. You looked very unhappy, I thought: 
got up witii an effort, and smiled a pitiful smile. 

"Are you come here for a little quiet?" I 
asked. " I am not going to disturb you." 

*"I came here for pleasure, not quiet," you 
said, "with papa and some friends. I was 
tired, so they walked on and left me." 

"That is the way with one's friends," said I. 
"Who arc the culprits, Miss Olliver?" 



"I am the only culprit," you said, grimly. 
"Lady Fanny and Mr. Halbert came with us 
to-da}'^ Look, there they are at the end of 
that alley." 

And as you spoke, you raised one hand and 
pointed, and I made up my mind. It was a 
very long alley. The figures in the distance 
were advancing very slowl3\ When they reach 
that little temple, thought I, I will tell her what 
I think. 

This was by no means so sudden a determina- 
tion as it may appear to you, reading over these 
pages. It seems a singular reason to give ; but 
I really think it was your hopeless fancy for 
that rosy youth which touched me and interest- 
ed me so. I know I used to carry home sad 
words, spoken not to me, and glances that 
thrilled me with love, pity, and sympathy. 
W^hat I said was, as you know, very simple 
and to the purpose. I knew quite well your 
fancy was elsewhere; mine was with you, 
perhaps as hopelessly placed. I didn't exactly 
see what good this confession was to do either 
of us, only there I was, ready to spend my life 
at your service. 

•When I had spoken there was a silent mo- 
ment, and then you glowed up — your eyes melt- 
ed, your mouth quivered. "Oh, what can I 
say ? Oh, I am so lonely. Oh, I have not one 
friend in the world ; and now, suddenly, a help- 
ing hand is held out, and I can't — I can''t push 
it away. Oh, don't despise. Oh, forgive me." 

Despise ! scorn ! . . . Poor child ! I only 
liked you the more for your plaintive appeal ; 
though I wondered at it. 

"Take your time," I said; "I can wait, 
and I shall not fly away. Call me when you 
want me ; send me away when I weary you. 
Here is your father; shall I speak to him? 
But no. Remember there is no single link be- 
tween us, except what you yourself hold in your 
own hands." 

Here your father and Halbert and Lady F;in- 
ny came up. "Well, Esther, are you rested ?" 
says the Colonel cheerfully. "Why, how do 
you do?" (to me). "What have you been 
talking about so busily?" 

You did not answer, but fixed your eyes on 
your father's face. I said something ; I forget 
what. Halbert, looking interested, turned from 
one to the other. Lady Fanny, who held a 
fragrant heap of roses, shook a few petals to the 
ground, where they lay scattered after we had 
all walked away. 

If you remember, I did not go near you for a 
day or two after this. But I wrote you a let- 
ter, in which I repeated that you were entirely 
free to use me as you liked : marry me — make 
a friend of me — I was in your hands. One 
d.i}^, at last, I called ; and I shall never forget 
the sweetness and friendly gratefulness with 
which you received me. A solitary man, 
dying of lonely thirst, you meet me smiling 
with a cup of sparkling water : a v/eary watch.- 
er tlirough the night — suddenly I see the dawn 
streaking the bright horizon. Those were very 



286 



TO ESTHER. 



])leasant times. I remember no\v, one afternoon 
in early spring, open windows, sounds coming in 
from the city, the drone of the pifferari ftzzing 
drowsily in the sultry streets. You sat at your 
window in some light-colored dress, laughing 
now and then, and talking your tender little 
talk. The Colonel, from behind The Times, 
joined in now and again: the pleasant half- 
hours slid by. We were still basking there, 
when Halbert was announced, and came in, 
looking very tall and handsome. The bagpipes 
droned on, the flies sailed in and out on the 
sunshine : you still sat tranquilly at the open 
casement ; but somehow the golden atmosphere 
of the hour was gone. Your smiles were gone ; 
your words were silenced ; and that happy lit- 
tle hour was over forever. 

When I got up to come away Halbert rose 
too : he came down stairs with me, and sudden- 
ly looking me full in the face said, "When is it 
to be?" 

" You know much more about it than I do," 
I answered. 

"You don't mean to say that you are not 
very much smitten with our hostess?" said 
he. 

"Certainly I am," said I; "I should be 
ready enough to marry her, if that is what you 
mean, I dare say I shan't get her. She is to 
me the most sympathetic woman I have ever 
known. You are too young, Mr. Halbert, to 
understand and feel her worth. Don't be of- 
fended," I added, seeing him flush up. "You 
young fellows can't be expected to see with the 
same eyes as we old ones. You will think as I 
do in another ten yeai-s." 

" How do you mean ?" he asked. 
"Isn't it the way with all of us?" said I; 
" we begin by liking universally ; as we go on 
we pick and choose, and weary of things which 
had only the charm of novelty to recommend 
them ; only as our life narrows we cling more 
and more to the good things which remain, and 
feel their value ten times more keenly. And 
surely a sweet, honest-hearted young woman 
like Esther Olliver is a good thing." 

" She is very nice," Halbert said. " She 
has such good manners. I have had more ex- 
perience than you give me credit for, and I am 
very much of your way of thinking. They say 
that old courtly Colonel is dreadfully harsh to 
her — wants to marry her oif his hands. I as- 
sure you you have a very good chance." 

"I mistrust that old Colonel," said I, dicta- 
torially; "as I trust his daughter. Somehow 
she and I chime in tune together;'' and, as I 
spoke, I began to understand why you once said 
wofully, that you had not one friend in tlie 
world ; and my thoughts wandered away to the 
garden where I had found you waiting on the 
steps of the terrace. 

" What do you say to the serenade Lady 
Fanny and I have been performing lately ?" 
Halbert was saying meanwhile, very confiden- 
tially. "Sometimes I can not help fancying 
that the Colonel wants to take a part in the 



performance, and a cracked old tenor part, too. 
In that case I shall cry off, and give up my en- 
gagements." And then, nodding good-bye, he 
left me. 

I remember the evening of that day, a sud- 
den wind had risen, driving the clouds across 
the city ; the soft, wild gust came with a wail 
and a splashing of rain dashing against my un- 
curtained window. The city lights were flaring 
and extinguished. The woman of the house 
had piled up a wood fire on the stone hearth, 
and the logs were smouldering in a bed of 
white ashes. I had not gone out as usual, but 
I had staid at home reading a book which had 
been sent out to me from England. It was the 
Idijlls of the King, I remember, which had late- 
ly come out. About nine o'clock some one 
came ringing at the door, and old Octavia 
brought me a note in a writing I recognized. 
"The Signorina's cook had left it on his way 
home," said Octavia. " He lodges close by." 

Poor little note ! it was wet with rain-drops. 
I have it now. 

" Via delta Croce, Friday. 

"Dear Mr. Smith" (I read), — "I have just 
seen my father and heard some news which has 
surprised and bewildered me. He is engaged 
to be married to Lady Fanny Fareham. Will 
you come and see me to-morrow ? Good-night, 
dear kind friend. Esther." 

That was all. Poor little Esther! 
I met Halbert in the Babuino the very next 
day. He came straight up to me, saying, 
" Going to the Ollivers', eh ? Will you take a 
message for me, and tell the Colonel I mean to 
look in there this evening ? That old fox the 
Colonel — you have heard that he is actually go- 
ing to marry Lady Fanny. She told me so 
herself, yesterday." 

"I think her choice is a prudent one," I an- 
swered. "I suppose Colonel Olliver is three 
times as rich as yourself? You must expect a 
woman of thirty to be prudent. I'm not fond 
of that virtue in very young people, but it is not 
unbecoming with years." 

Halbert flushed up. "I suppose from that 
you mean she was very near marrying me? 
I'm not sorry she has taken up with the Colo- 
nel, after all. You see, my mother was always 
writing, and my sisters at home ; and they used 
to tell me . . . and I myself thought she — you 
know what I mean. But, of course, they have 
been reassured on that point." 

"Do you mean to say," I asked, in a great 
panic, " that you would marry any woman who 
happened to fall in love with you ?" 

"I don't know what I might have done a 
year ago," said he, laughing ; " but just now, you 
see, I have had a warning, and, besides, it is my 
turn to make the advances." 

I was immensely relieved at this, for I didn't 
know what I was not going to say. 

Here, as we turned a street-corner, we came 
upon a black-robed monk, standing, veiled and 
motionless, with a skull in one bony hand. This 



TO ESTHER. 



287 



cheerful object changed the current of our talk, 
and we parted presently at a fountain. Wom- 
en with black twists of hair were standing round 
about, waiting in careless attitudes, while the 
limpid water flowed. 

When I reached your door, I found the car- 
riage waiting, and you and your ftither under 
the archway. " Come with us, " said he, and I 
gladly accepted. And so wfe drove out at one 
of tlie gates of the city, out into the Campagna, 
over which melting waves of color were rolling. 
Here and there we passed ancient ruins crum- 
bling in the sun ; the roadsides streamed with 
color and fragrance from violets and wild hya- 
cinths and sweet-smelling flowers. After some 
time we came suddenly to some green hills, and 
leaving the carriage climbed up the slopes. 
Then we found ourselves looking down into a 
green glowing valley, with an intense heaven 
above, all melting into light. You, with a little 
ti-ansient gasp of happiness, fell down kneeling 
in the grass. I shall always see the picture I 
had before me then — the light figure against 
the bright green, the black hat, and long falling 
feather ; the eager face looking out at the world. 
May it be forever green and pleasant to you as 
it was then, oh eager face ! 

As we were parting in the twilight, I at last 
remembered to give Halbert's message. It 
did not greatly affect your father ; but how was 
it ? Was it because I knew you so well that I 
instinctively guessed you were moved by it? 
When I shook hands with you and said good- 
night, your hand trembled in mine. 

"Won't you look in too?" said the Colonel. 

But I shook my head. "Not to-night — no, 
thank you." And so we parted. 

My lodgings were in the Gregoriana ; the 
windows looked out over gardens and cupolas ; 
from one of them I could see the Pincio. From 
that window, next morning, as I sat drinking my 
coff"ee, I suddenly saw you, walking slowly along 
by the parapet, with your dog running by your 
side. You went to one of those outlying ter- 
races which flank the road, and, leaning over 
the stone-work, looked out at the great pano- 
rama lying at your feet: — Rome with her pur- 
ple mantle of mist, regally spreading, her towers, 
her domes, and great St. Peter's rising over the 
house-tops, her seven hills changing and deep- 
ening with noblest color, her golden crown of 
sunlight streaming and melting with the mist. 
Somehow I, too, saw all this presently when I 
reached the place where you were still stand- 
ing. 

And now I have almost come to the end of 
my story — that is, of those few days of my life 
of which you, Esther, were the story. You stood 
there waiting, and I hastened towards you, and 
fate (I fancied you were my Fate) went on its 
course quite unmoved by my hojies or your 
fears. I thought that you looked almost hand- 
some for once. You certainly seemed more 
happy. Your face flushed and faded, your eyes 
brightened and darkened. As you turned and 
saw me, a radiant quiver, a piteous smile came 



to greet me somewhat strangely. You seemed 
trying to speak, but the words died away on your 
lips— to keep silence, at least, but the faltering 
accents broke forth. 

" What is it, my dear ?" said I at last, with a 
queer sinking of the heart, and I held out my 
hand. 

You caught it softly between both yours. 
"Oh!" you said, with sparkling eyes, "I am 
a mean, wretched girl — oh ! don't think too ill 
of me.' He, Mr. Halbert, came to see me last 
night, and — and he says . . . Oh ! I don't de- 
serve it. Oh ! forgive me, for I am so happy ;" 
and you burst into tears. "You have been so 
good to me," you whispered on. "I hardly 
know how good. He says he only thought of 
me when you spoke of me to him, when — when 
he saw you did not dislike me. I am behaving 
shamefully — yes, shamefully-, but it is because I 
know you are too kind not to forgive — not to 
forgive. What can I do ? You know how it 
has always been. You don't know what it would 
be to marry one person, caring for another. Ah ! 
you don't know what it would be to have it 
otherwise than as it is "' (this clasping your 
hands). " But you don't ask it. Ah! forgive 
me, and say you don't ask it." Then standing 
straight and looking down with a certain sweet 
dignity, you went on — "Heaven has sent me 
a great and unexpected happiness, but there 
is, indeed, a bitter, bitter cup to drink as 
well. Though I throw you over, though I be- 
have so selfishly, don't think that I am utterly 
conscienceless, that I do not suffer a cruel pang 
indeed. When I think how you must look at 
me, when I remember what return I am making 
for all your forbearance and generosity, when I 
think of myself, I am ashamed and humiliated ; 
when I tliink of him — " Here you suddenly 
broke off", and turned away your face. 

Ah me ! turned away your face forever from 
me. The morning mists faded away ; the mid- 
day sun streamed over hills and towers and val- 
ley. The bell of the Trinita hard by began to 
toll. 

I said, " Good-bye, and Heaven keep you, my 
dear. I would not have had you do otherwise." 
And so I went back to my lodging. 



(After seven years.^ 

"I leaned a little and overlooked my prize, 
By the low railing round the fountain-source 
Close to the statue, where a step descends." 

Bosost, August 20. 
"Do you remember the story I wrote you in 
18G0, when I came back from Rome ? To com- 
plain was a consolation, when it was to you I 
complained. I was lonely enough and disap- 
pointed, and yet I have been more unhappy 
since. Then I tliought that at least you were 
happy, but later they said it was not so, and 
bitterness and regret overpowered me for a time. 
But this was after I liad written to you. 



288 



TO ESTHER. 



"I scarcely remember what I said now, it is 
so long ago, but I know every word had a mean- 
ing since you were to see it, and the Esther I 
wrote to, the Esther whose image was forever 
before me, seemed mine sometimes though we 
were forever parted. I have often thought 
that the Esther I loved loved me tliough the 
other one married Halbert. Perhaps you were 
only her semblance, and she was waiting for 
me elsewhere in a different form. But the fa- 
miliar fiice with the sallow cheeks and dark 
brows, and all the sudden light in it, comes be- 
fore me as I write even now. I have seen it a 
thousand thousand times since we parted by the 
Trinita ; do you remember when the bell was 
ringing for matins ? Only as years have gone 
l)y the lines have faded a little, the eyes look 
deep and tender, but they have lost their color ; 
though I know how the lights and the smiles 
still come and still go, I can not see them so 
plainly. The woman herself I can conjure 
across the years and the distance, but the face 
does not start clear-set before me as in those days 
when I only lived to follow your footsteps, to 
loiter among the shadows in your way, and in 
the sunshine through wliich you seemed to move ; 
to drink up the sweet tones of your voice, to 
watch you when you sat at your window, when 
you lingered in the silent Italian gardens, or 
moved with a gentle footfall along eciioing gal- 
leries, with dim golden pictures, and harmonies 
of glowing color all about you. 

"What sea-miles and land-miles, what flying 
years and lagging honrs, what sorrows and joys 
lie between us — and joys separate more surely 
than sorrows do. People scale prison-walls, they 
wade througli rivers, they climb over arid mount- 
ains, to rejoin those whom they love, but the 
great barriers of happiness and content, who has 
surmounted them? 

"I say this, and yet success has been mine 
since I saw you. Many good things have come 
to me for which I did not greatly care, but though 
the spring tides and bright summers and the bit- 
ter winter winds and autumnal mists were fated 
to part us year after year, yet it also seemed des- 
tined that I should love you faithfully through 
all — that even forgetfulness should not prevent 
it, that disappointment should not embitter, that 
indifference should not chill. What I have 
borne from yon I could not have endured from 
any other. Once, long before I knew you, a 
woman spoke to me hastily, and I left her, and 
could not forgive her for years, and sometimes 
I ask myself is my ill-luck a judgment upon 
me? 

" I, who was so impatient once and hard of 
heart, make no merit of my long affection for 
yon, Esther : it was simply fate, and I could not 
resist it. Changing, unchanging, faithful, lui- 
faithful, who can account for his experiences? 
Does mistrust bring about of itself that which it 
imagines ? is everij thinfj there tliat we fancy we 
see in people? Often I think that fallen as we 
are, and weary and soiled by tlie wayside dust 
and mud, and the many cares of life, some gleam 



of the divine radiance is ours still, and to those 
who love us best it is given to see it. That the 
sweetness and goodness and brightness we had 
fancied are no fancies, but truth. True though 
clouds and darkness come between us, and tlie 
mortal parts can not always apprehend the di- 
vine. 

" Love is blind ; indifference sees more clear- 
ly, people say, and'I wonder if this can be true; 
for my part I think it is the other way. I have 
sometimes asked about you from one and from 
another, and people have spoken of you as if you 
were to me only what they are, what I am to 
them, or they to you. I seem to be writing rid- 
dles and ringing the changes upon the words 
which you will not see. Whether you see them 
or not, what does it matter? you would not un- 
derstand their meaning, their sorrowful fidelity, 
nor do I wish that you should. 

" For, as I have said, years have passed, other 
thoughts and ties and interests have come to 
mc; I am sometimes even vexed and wearied 
by my own unchanging nature, and I am tired 
of the very things from which lean not tear my- 
self away. I don't think I care for you now, 
though I still love the woman who jilted me 
years ago upon the Pincio. It might be that, 
seeing you again, all the old tender emotion of 
feeling would revive towards you. It might be 
that you would wound me a second time by de- 
stroying my dreams, my ideal remembrance. 
Very sad, very sweet, very womanly and trust- 
ful my remembrance is. I should imagine you 
must have hardened— improved as people call it 
— since then, and been moulded into some dif- 
ferent person. Six years spent with Halbert 
must have altered you, I think, and marred the 
sweet imperfections of your nature. At any 
rate you are as far removed from me as if poor 
Halbert were alive still to torment you. 

" This morning at Luchon my courier brought 
me a letter which interested me oddly enough, 
and brought back all the old fancies and associ- 
ations. It came from my cousin's wife, Lady 
Mary. There were but a few lines, but your 
name was written thrice in it ; and like an old 
half-remembered tune, all the way riding along 
the rough road I have been haunted by a refrain 
— 'Meet Esther again, shall it be, can it be?' 
— fitting to a sort of rhythm, which is sing-song- 
ing in my head at this instant. 

" For want of a companion to speak to, I have 
written this nonsense at length. I can not talk 
to my courier except to swear at the roads. They 
narrowed and roughened as we got into Spain, 
after we liad crossed a bridge with a black river 
rushing beneath it. High up in the mountains 
the villages perched like eagles' nests; the 
streams were dashing over the rocks in the clefts 
below. This is not a golden and sun-painted 
land like the country we have been used to. 
Italy seems like summer as I think of it, and this 
is like autumn to me. The colors have sombic 
tints ; there are strange browns and yellows, 
faded greens with deep' blue shades in them. 
Stones roll from the pathway and fall crashing 



TO ESTHER. 



into the ravines below. No roads lead to the 
villages where the jjeople live for a lifetime, till- 
ing their land, weaving their clothes, tending 
their cattle ; many of them never coming down 
into the valley all their lives long, sufficing to 
themselves and ignoring the world at their feet. 
So my guides have told me, at least, and it was 
their business to know. . . ." 

****** 

All this had been written on the rail of a bal- 
cony to the jangling of a church-bell and the 
sympathetic droning of a guitar with one note. 
It was played by a doleful-looking soldier in 
tight regimentals, sitting upright on a chair on 
the landing-place, and never moving a muscle, 
while the flies buzzed about his head. A mo- 
tionless companion sat near, listening to the mel- 
ody. Presently, in the midst of his writing, 
Geoifry Smith, who had scarcely heeded the gui- 
tar or the bell, suddenly heard a great chatter- 
ing and commotion in the street below, and look- 
ing over tlie rail, he saw a crowd of little gipsy 
children swarming in front of the house. They 
were trying to climb up into the balcony, getting 
on one another's backs, clapping their hands, 
screaming and beckoning to him : — " Mossoo ! 
Mossoo ! — tit sou — allons done!" with an en- 
couraging gesture. "Tit sou — 'Ions done — 
vite, Mossoo !" and the brown faces grinned be- 
neath their little Moorish-looking turbans — yel- 
low green, scarlet handkerchiefs ; and all the 
brown bare legs went capering. The narrow 
street was crowded with people hurrying to the 
call of the church*bell. Women came out of the 
low doorways of their houses, adjusting their 
mantillas. Rosina tripped by with the duenna. 
Don Basilio strode past with flapping skirts, pan- 
tomime-like cocked hat, cotton umbrella and 
all. Smith looked at them all from over his 
balcony, like from a box at the opera. At the 
other end of the Place — Plaza de la Constitu- 
cion its name was — the French Consul, leaning 
over his eagle, was sleepily smoking a cigar and 
watching the church-goevs pass by. Strum- 
tumty, strum-tumty — tumty-struni, went the 
guitar, and presently — still like a scene at the 
play — the light darkened, the people looked up 
at the sky, and there came an artificial clap of 
thunder from the hill-top over the town, with a 
sudden storm of hail and lightning. Rosina 
set off sca.npering with her duenna. So did 
the priests ; the young men with their bright 
red caps lounging at the corner of the street; 
the- old man with his donkey; and the little 
grinning beggar-children. 

Smith tliought he, too, should like to see the 
inside of the church, which seemed to be looked 
upon as a safe refuge : every body was rushing 
in the same direction. He had not very far to 
go : up a short street, and along the Plaza, and 
then, after crossing a little wooden drawbridge, 
Smith found himself at the church door. He 
stooped and went in through a low Moorish- 
looking arch, and descended a short flight of 
black marble steps which led down into the aisle. 

It seemed quite dark nt first, except that the 
T 



tapers were flaring at the altar, where tliree un- 
prepossessing-looking priests were officiating. 
By degrees Smith found that he was standing 
in a beautiful old Templar church, with arches, 
with red silk hangings, and a chequered marble 
floor, and a dark carved gallery from which some 
heads were peeping. The women were sitting 
and squatting on the floor with their shoes neat- 
ly ranged at their sides, and their babies dan- 
dling in their arms. The men were behind, near- 
er the door ; and in the front row of all, grin- 
ning, showing their teeth, and plucking at his 
legs as he went by. Smith discovered the little 
company of persecuting boys and girls, pretend- 
ing to bury their faces in their hands when he 
looked at them, and peeping at him through 
their wiry little fingers with shining malicious 
eyes. 

The service came to an end ; the storm pass- 
ed away. Smith left the church with the chil- 
dren swarming at his heels, and found his guide 
waiting with the hors^ ready harnessed. They 
had no time to lose, the man said — the bill was 
paid. Smith sprang into the saddle, flung a 
handful of halfpence to the Moorish little ban- 
dits, and rode off" as hard as he could go along 
the rotfgh bridle-path. 

It was very late before he got back. He dined 
by himself about ten o'clock, with a tired, shirt- 
sleeved waiter to attend upon him, and then he 
went and sat under the trees on the Cours, list- 
ening to the music and trying to make up his 
mind. Should he go to Bigorre? Yes; no; 
vn peu ; heaucoup ; pas die tout. He changed his 
plans over and over again. About midnight, 
when the music and the lights were still alive, the 
people still drinking their coffee and lemonade in 
the soft starlit night, and chatting and humming 
all round about. Smith determined at last that he 
would stay for a day or two longer, and then go 
to Tarbes and on to Marseilles and to Italy. 
Having made out this scheme, he called a voi- 
turier with a whip and jack-boots who happened 
to be passing, and asked him if he was engaged 
and what was his fare to St. Bertrand. Smith 
had a fancy to see the old place, which lies on 
the road to Tarbes. It also lies on the road to 
Bigorre, but Smith thought that he did not re- 
member this. The guide was a Bigorre man and 
anxious to get there. He was willing enough 
to go to St. Bertrand. After that he should like 
to get home, he said. His horses wanted a rest. 
Smith came to a compromise with him at last. 
The tired horses were to take him to St. Ber- 
trand, and then they were to make further ar- 
rangements. 

Two roads cross the country which divides 
Liichon from Bigorre. One runs direct in noble 
undulations over hill-tops and mountain ranges. 
It goes bursting over tlie great Col d'Aspin, from 
whence you may see the world, like a sea, toss- 
ing and heaving at your feet, and trembling with 
the light upon a thousand hills ; and then the 
highway plunges down into deep valleys, where 
the air is scented with pine-wood. 

The other road v.'inds by the plain and follows 



290 



TO ESTHER. 



the course of a flowing river, past villages sun- 
decked and vine-wreathed, but silent and desert- 
ed in their whiteness. A sad-faced woman looks 
from her cottage-door ; a dark-headed boy comes 
skimming over the stones with his naked feet, 
and holds up his hand for alms ; a traveller, rest- 
ing on a heap by the dusty roadside, nods his 
head in token of weary fellowship. At last, 
as you still follow the road in the valley, with 
the low range on either side, you sudden)}' reach 
a great hill with the towers of a strong city ris- 
ing from its summit. It dominates the land- 
waves, which seem flowing down from the mount- 
ains, and the great flat marshes which stretch 
away to the sea. 

Smith chose the plain to return by, wishing, 
as I have said, to see St. Bertrand : he had cross- 
ed the mountain before, in the course of his trav- 
els. He went rolling along through the fresh 
morning air, with his head full of old sights and 
thoughts — very far away, hankerings and fancies 
which he had imagined* safely buried in the 
Campagna or mouldering with the relics of his 
old Italian sight-seeing times. Along tlie banks 
of the river, crossing and recrossing many times 
from one side to another, through plajns and 
sunny villages, they had come at last to St. Ber- 
trand, the city on the hill. The driver, a surly 
fellow, hissed and cursed as the horses went 
stuTnbling up the steep ascent, straining and 
slipping in the blazing sun over bleached white 
stones. There were four bony horses, orna- 
mented with bells and loaded with heavy har- 
ness. Smith reclined at his ease among the 
fusty cushions of the carriage ; his courier clung 
nervously to the narrow railing on tlie box ; 
Pierre, the driver, cracked his long whii), mut- 
tered horrible oaths between his teeth, gulped, 
choked, shi'ieked, with hideous jerks and sounds. 
They slowly climb tlie hill of St. Bertrand. 
Every thing seems to grow whiter and brighter 
as they mount. They reach the town at last: 
there is an utter silence and look of abandon- 
ment; flowers are hanging over the walls and 
'gables and postern-gates. They pass fountains 
of marble, stone casements, and turrets and bal- 
conies, all white, blazing, deserted, with gerani- 
ums hanging and flowering. They pass under 
an archway with carvings and emblazonments 
throwing deep shadows, by strange gables and 
corners and turrets, up a fantastic street. It 
was like a goblin city, so dreary, silent, deserted, 
with such strange conceits and ornaments at 
every corner. 

The hotel was empty, too ; one demure, sour 
visage came to the door to receive them. Yes, 
there was food prepared ; the horses could, be 
put up in the stables. A human voice seemed 
to break the enchantment, for I think until then 
Smith had almost expected to find a sleeping 
princess upon a bed, a king, a queen, a court, 
all dreaming and dozing inside this ancient pal- 
ace : for the inn had been a palace, at some time 
or other perhaps inhabited by the ancient Bish- 
ops of St. Bertrand, or by some of the nobles 
whose escutcheons still hang on the gates of the 



city. There were two tables, both laid and 
spi-ead in readiness, in the solemn old dining- 
room, with its white painted panels and carved 
chimney. Smith was amused to see a Murray 
lying on the white cloth nearest the window. 
Even here, in this forgotten end of the world, 
the wandering tribes of Britain had hoisted the 
national standard and hastened to secure the 
best ])lace at the feast. Tiiere were three plates, 
three forks, three knives. Smith, dimly pur- 
suing his morning fancy, and bewitched by the 
unreality and silence of all about him, thought 
that this was the place in which he should like 
to meet Esther again — if he was ever to meet 
her. Here, in this white, blinding silence, she 
miglit come like an apparition out of his dreams 
— come up the steep mediasval street, past the 
fountain, with her long dress — how well he re- 
membered it — rippling over the stones, her slim 
straight figure standing in relief against the 
blazing skj;. ..." Cutlets — yes; and a chick- 
en ; and a bottle of St. Julien. . . ." This 
was to the waiting-woman, who asked him what 
he would like. 

GeoftVy walked out into the garden to wait 
until his cutlets should be ready, and he found 
an unkept wilderness, tangled and sweet with 
autumnal roses, and a carved stone terrace or 
loggia, facing a great beautiful landscape. As 
he leaned against the marble parapet, Smith, 
who still thought he was only admiring the 
view, imagined Esther walking up the street, 
coming nearer and nearer, ar)proaching along 
the tangled walk through the rose-trees, and 
standing beside him at last on the terrace. It 
was a fancy, nothing more ; it was not even a 
presentiment; all the beautiful Morld below 
shimmered and melted into greater and greater 
loveliness; an insect went flying and buzzing 
over the parapet and out into the clear atmo- 
sphere ; a rose fell to pieces, and as the leaves 
tumbled to the ground one or two floated on to 
the yellow time-worn ledge against which Smith 
was leaning. No, he would not go to Bigorre ; 
he said to himself he would turn his horses' 
heads, or travel beyond Bigorre, to some one 
of the other mountains — to Luz or St. Sauveur, 
or farther still, to Eaux Bonnes, in the heart 
of the Pyrenees. He pulled out his letter and 
read it again; this was all it said, in Lady 
Mary's cramped little hand : — 

" B. de Bigone. 
"Dear Geoffey — Some one has seen you 
somewhere in the Pyrenees ; will you not take 
Bigorre on your M'ay, and come and spend a 
few days with us ? It would cheer my husband 
up to see you ; his cough is troublesome still, 
though he is greatly better than when we left 
the rectory. There are one or two nice people 
in the place. I am sure you would spend a few 
])leasant days. "VVc have the three Vulliameys, 
Mr. and Mrs. Penton, and Olga Halbert ; that 
jioor Mrs. Halbert, too, is with them ; her chil- 
dren make great friends with ours. Mrs. Hal- 
bert tells us she knows you. She is very much 



TO ESTHER 



201 



altered and shaken by her husband's death, 
though one can not but feel that it must be more 
a shock than a sorrow to her, poor woman. The 
Pentons and Mrs. Ilalbert are at the hotel. 
She says they find it comfortable. I know you 
like being independent best, otherwise we have 
a nice little room for you, and should much 
prefer having you with us while you stay. The 
cliildren are flourishing, and I expect my sister 
Lucy to join us in a few days. Do try and 
come, and give us all a great deal of jdeasure. 
"Affectionately yours, Mart Smith. 
<'P. S. — I shall send this to St. James's 
Place on the chance that it may be forwarded 
back again to you with your other letters." 

Smith read the letter and tore it up absently, 
and tlirew it on the ground. He would not go 
to Bigorre ; he was past th'e age of sentiment ; 
lie would never marry ; he did not want to see 
Esther again and destroy his remembrance of 
her, or make a fool of himself perhaps, and be 
bound to a woman hardened by misfortune, by 
long contact with worldly minds, by devotion 
to an unworthy object. " How could she pre- 
fer Halbert to me?" Smith thought, with an 
amused self-consciousness. Esther was a clever 
woman : she had thought for herself : she need- 
ed a certain intellectual calibre of companion- 
ship. Halbert cultivated his whiskers ; his best 
aspirations were after Lady Xand Y and Z and 
their tea-parties ; and then Smith wandered 
away from poor Halbert, who was gone now, to 
the lovely sight before him. 

It was not so much the view as the beautiful 
fires which were lighting it up. If color were 
like music — if one could write it down, and 
possess for good, the gleams of sudden sweet- 
ness, the modulation, the great bursting sym- 
phonies of light thrilling from a million notes 
at once into one great triumphal harmony : if 
the passion of loveliness — I know no better 
word — which seems all about ns at times, could 
be written down, one would need words that 
should change and deepen and sweeten with 
the reader's mood, and shift forever into com- 
binations lovely and yet more lovely. 

Smith was looking still with a heart full of 
gratitude and admiration, when he heard a step 
upon the gravel walk. He turned round to see 
who was coming. Was this an enclianted city 
he had come to ? A tall slim figure of a wom- 
an in black robes was advancing along the grav- 
el walk and coming to the overhanging teiTace 
where he was standing. Alas! it was no en- 
chantment. The genii had not brought his 
princess on their wings. It was no one he had 
ever seen before — no sallow face with the sweet 
bright look in it ; it was only a handsome-look- 
ing young woman, one of the thousands there 
are in the world, with peach-red cheeks and 
bright keen eyes, who glanced at him suspic- 
iously. Two great black feathers were hanging 



from her hat ; her long silk gown rippled in ' 
the Sunshine, and her black silk cloak was fast- 
ened round her neck by a silver clasp. I 



It was a very charming apparition, Smith 
thought, though it was not the one he had 
hoped for — there was nothing gracious about 
this well-grown young lady. This was no Es- 
ther — this was not a woman who would change 
her mind a dozen times a day, who would be 
weak and foolish and trustful always. Geoftry 
was half repelled, half attracted by the keen de- 
termined face, the firm-moulded lines. He 
might not have thought twice about her at 
another time ; but in this golden solitude and 
Garden of Eden it almost seemed as if a com- 
panion was wanted. He had been contented 
enough until now with a shadowy friend of his 
own exorcising. The lady in black, after look- 
ing at the view for a second, turned round and 
walked away again as deliberately as she hatl 
come, and he presently followed her example 
for want of something better to do. The hills 
were still melting, roses were flushing and 
scenting the air, insects floating as lieforc ; but 
Smith, whose train of thought had been dis- 
turbed, turned his back upon all their loveli- 
ness and strolled into the house to ask if his 
breakfast was ready. 

Prim-face, who was busy at a great carved 
cupboard, seemed amazed at the question. 
"You have not seen the cathedral yet: travel- 
lers always go over tlie cathedral before the dejeu- 
ner. We have had to catch and kill the fowl," 
in an aggrieved tone. "Encore vingt minutes — 
n'est-ce pas, Auguste !" shrieks the woman sud- 
denly, without budging from her place. 

" Vingt minutes," repeats a deep voice from 
somewhere or other behind the great cupboard, 
and there was no more to be said on the sub- 
ject. 

Smith spent the twenty minutes during which 
his chicken was grilling and his potatoes friz- 
zling, in a great lofty cathedral. It stands on 
the very summit of the hill, high above the town 
and the surrounding plains : wide flights lead 
to the great entrance, the walls 'and roof arc 
bare, but of beautiful and generous propor- 
tions : lofty arches vault high overhead. The 
sunshine, which seems weird and goblin in the 
city, falls here with a more solemn light : slant 
gleams flit across the mai-ble pavement as the 
great door swings on its hinges, and footfolls 
echo in the distance. Smith seemed to recog- 
nize the place somehow — it looked familiar : 
the rough beautiful arches, the vastncss, the 
desertion ; no priests, no one praying, no glim- 
mer of shrines and candles ; only space, silence, 
light from the large window, only a solemn fig- 
ure of an abbot lying upon his marble bed with 
a date of three hundred years ago. 

Smith remembered dreaming of such a place 
in his old home years and years before, when 
he was a boy, and had never even heard Esther's 
name. The abbot on his marble bed seemed 
familiar, the placid ftice, the patient hands, the 
dog crouching at his feet. A great gleam of 
sun from a window overhead streaked and 
lighted the marble. Smith sat down on the 
step of the tomb and looked up at the great 



292 



TO ESTHER. 



■window. A white pigeon with a beautiful 
breast shining in the sun was sitting upon tlic 
mullion. It sat for a time, and then it flew 
away with a sudden rush across the violet-blue 
sky. Smith did not move, but waited in a 
tranquil, gentle frame of mind, like that of a 
person who is dreaming beautiful dreams, nor 
had waited very long when he seemed to be 
conscious of people approaching, voices and 
footsteps coming nearer and nearer, nntil at 
last they were somewhere close at hand, and he 
overheard the following uninteresting conversa- 
tion between two voices : 

' ' Why don't they do it up with chintz if they 
are so poor? chintz costs next to nothing. I 
am sure that lily of the valley and ribbon pat- 
tern in my dressing-room seems as if it never 
would Avear out. I was saying to Hudson only 
the other day, 'Really, Hudson, I think while 
we ai'e away you must get some new covers for 
my dressing-room.' " 

Here a second voice interrupted with — 
"Charles, do you remember any allusion to 
St. Bertrand in Javneson's Lives of the Saints? 
I read the book very carefully, but I can not 
feel quite certain." 

To which the first voice rejoined — "Why, 
Olga, I do wonder you don't remember. I think 
Cliarles has a very bad memory indeed. And 
so have I; but ?/om read so much." 

Charles now spoke. "Here, Mira, look at 
this a-hm — a-interesting monument. — To the 
right, Mira, to the right. You are walking 
away from it." 

"Dear me, Charles! what a droll creature. 
He puts me in mind of uncle John." 

" I can not help thinking," Charles said im- 
pressively, "that this is the place Lady Kid- 
derminster was describing at Axminster House. 
I am almost convinced of it." 

Then Smith heard Charles saying rapidly and 
speaking his words all in a string as it were — 

" Lady-Kidderminster-a-e'te'-beaucoup -frap- 
pee-par-une-Cathe'drale-dans-les-Pyre'ne'es. Est- 
ce-qu'elle-a-passe-par-ici ? . . . . I am sure — I — 
a-beg your pardon. — I had not perceived — " and 
a stout consequential-looking gentleman, who 
was in the middle of his sentence, stumbled 
over Smith's umbrella, while Smith, half 
amused, half provoked, rose from his seat and 
seemed to the speaker to emerge suddenly, red 
beard and all, from the tomb. Mira gave a 
little scream, Olga looked amused. 

"I trust I have not seriously injured — a-hm ! 
any thing," said tlie gentleman ; " we were ex- 
amining this — a — relic, and had not observed — " 
Smith made a little bow, and another to the 
beautiful apparition on the terrace, whom he 
recognized. Next to her stood another very 
handsome youngish lady, stout, fair, and grand- 
ly dressed, who graciously acknowledged his 
greeting, while Olga slightly tossed her head, 
as was her way when she thought heft'self par- 
ticularly irresistible. Behind them the cure' 
Avas waiting — a sad, heavy - featured man, in 
thick country shoes, whose shabby gown flap- 



ped against his legs as he walked with his head 
wearily bent. He only shrugged his shoulders 
at the many questions which were put to him. 
Such as. Why didn't they put in stained-glass 
windows ? Avasn't it very cold in winter ? was 
he sure he didn't remember Lady Kiddermin- 
ster ? Leading the way, he opened a side-door, 
through which Smith saw a beautiful old clois- 
ter, with a range of violet hills gleaming through 
the arches. It was unexpected, and gave him 
a sudden thrill of pleasure. 

"What a delightful place you have here," 
he said to the guide. "I think I should like 
to stay altogether." 

"Not many people care to pass by this way 
now," said the cure. "It is out of the road; 
they do not like to bring their horses up the 
steep ascent. Yes, it is a pretty point de vue. 
I come here of an evening sometimes." 

" Extremely so," said Mira. " Olga, do you 
know I am so tired ? I am convinced that I want 
bracing. I wish we had gone to Brighton instead 
of coming to this hot place. — Charles, do you 
think the 'dejeiiner' is ready? I am quite 
exhausted," she went on, in the same breath. 

"Would ces dames care to see the vest- 
ments ?" the cufate asked, a little wistfully, 
seeing them prepare to go. 

' ' Oh-a-merci, we are rather pressed for time," 
Charles was beginning, vvlien Smith saw that 
the man looked disappointed, and said he should 
like to see them. Olga, as they called her, 
shook out her draperies, and told Charles they 
might as well go through with the farce, and Mira 
meekly towered after her husband and sister. 
These are odious people, poor Smitli thought. 
The ladies are handsome enough, but they are 
like About's description of his two heroines: 
"L'une e'tait une statue, I'antre nne poupe'e." 
This statue seemed always complacently contem- 
plating its own pedestal. In the sacristie there 
were only one or two relics and vestments to be 
seen, and a large book open upon a desk. 

"People sometimes," said the cure', humbly 
shuflfling and looking shyly up, "inscribe their 
names in this book, with some slight donation 
towards the repairs of the church." 

"I thought as much," said Olga, while 
Charles pompously produced his purse and be- 
gan fumbling about. Smith was touched by 
the wistful looks of the guide. This church 
was his child, his companion, 'and it was starv-j 
ing for want of food. He wrote his name — ' 
" Mr. Geoffry Smith" — and put down a couple 
of napoleons on the book, where the last entry 
was three months old, of two francs which some 
one had contributed. Tiie others opened their 
eyes as they saw what had happened. The 
cure's gratitude and delight amply repaid Geof- 
fry, who had more napoleons to spend than he 
could well get through. The pompous gentle- 
man now advanced, and in a large, aristocratic 
hand inscribed — "Mr. and Mrs. Penton, of 
Penton ;" "Miss Halbert." And at the same 
time Mr. Penton glanced at the name over his 
own, and suddenly gleamed into life, in that 



TO ESTHEE. 



293 



way which is peculiar to people who unexpect 
edly recognize a desira.ble acquaintance. 

" Mr. Smith ! I have often heard your 
name. You — a — knew my poor brother-in 
law, Frank Halbert, I believe. — Mrs. Penton — 
Miss Halbert. — A most curious and fortunate 
chance — hm-a ! — falling in with one another in 
this out-of-the-way portion of the globe. Per- 
haps we may be travelling in the same direc- 
tion ? we are on our way to Bigorre, where we 
rejoin our sister-in-law, Mrs. Frank Halbert." 

Geoffry felt as if it was the finger of Fate in- 
terfering. He followed them mechanically out 
into the street. 

. "How hot the sun strikes upon one's head. 
Do you dislike it?— I do," said Mrs. Penton, 
graciously, as they walked back to the hotel to- 
gethor. . . . 

People say that as they live on, they find an- 
swers in life to the problems and secrets which 
have haunted and vexed their youth. Is it so ? 
It seems as if some questions were never to be 
answered, some doubts never to be solved. 
Right and wrong seem to change and blend as 
life goes on, as do the alternate hours of light 
and darkness. Perhaps some folks know right 
from wrong always and at all times. But tiierc 
are others weak and inconsistent, who seem to 
live only to regret. They ask themselves with 
dismay, looking back at the past — Was that me 
myself? Could that have been me ? That per- 
son going about with the hard and angry heart ; 
that person uttering cruel and unforgiving words; 
that person thinking thoughts that my soul ab- 
hors ? Poor Esther ! Often and often of late 
lier own ghost had come to haunt her, as it had 
, haunted Smith — sometimes in a girlish guise, 
tender, impetuous, unworn and unsoiled by the 
wayside wear, the thorns and the dust of life. 
At other times — so she could remember herself 
at one time of her life — foolish, infatuated, mad, 
and blind — oh, how blind ! Her dream had not 
lasted very long ; she awoke from it soon. It 
was not much of a story. She was a woman 
•now. She Avas a girl when she first knew her 
husband, and another who she once thought 
would have been her husband. She had but 
to choose between them. Xhat was all her 
story ; and she took in her hand and then put 
away the leaden casket witli the treasure inside, 
while she kept the glittering silver and gold for 
her portion. 

" Some there be that shadows kiss ; 
Some have but a shadow's bliss." 

Poor Esther ! her shadows soon fled, parted, 
deepened into night ; and long sad years suc- 
ceeded one another : trouble and pain and hard- 
ness of heart, and bitter, bitter pangs of regret ; 
remorse of passionate effort after right, after 
peace, and cruel failures and humiliations. No 
one ever knew the life that Esther Halbert led 
for the six years after she married. Once in 
an agony of grief and humiliation she escaped to 
her stepmother with her little girl. Lady Fan- 
ny pitied her, gave her some luncheon, talked 



good sense. Old Colonel Olliver sneered, as 
was his way, and told liis daughter to go home 
in a cab. He could not advise her remaining 
witii him, and, in short, it was impossible. 

" You married Frank with your eyes open," 
he said. " Yo|| knew well enough what you 
were about when you threw over that poor fellow 
Smith, as if he had been an old shoe ; and now 
you must make the best of what you have. I am 
not going to have a scandal in the family, and a 
daughter without a husband constantly about the 
house. I'll talk to Halbert and see if matters 
can't be mended ; but you will be disgraced if 
you leave him, and you are in a very good posi- 
tion as you are. Injured wife, patient endurance 
— that sort of thing — nothing could be better." 

Esther, with steady eyes and quivering lips, 
slowly turned away as her father spoke. Lady 
Fanny, iier stepmother, was the kindest of the 
two, and talked to her about her children's wel- 
fare, and said she would drive her back in her 
brougham. Poor Esther dazed, sick at heart ; 
she thought that if it were not for her Jack and 
her Prissa she would go away and never come 
back again. Ah! what a life it was ; what a 
weary delusion, even for the haj)piest — even for 
those who obtained their heart's desire ! She 
had a great burst of crying, and then she was 
better, and said meekly, Yes, she would go 
home, and devote herself to her little ones, and 
try to bear with Frank. And she made a vow 
that she would complain no more, since this was 
all that came to h^r when she told her troubles 
to those who might have been a little sorry. Es- 
ther kept her vow. Was it her good angel that 
prompted her to make it? Halbert fell, out 
hunting, and was brought home senseless only 
a few days after, and Esther nursed him ten- 
derly and faithfully : when he moaned, she for- 
gave and forgot every pain he had ever inflicted 
upon her, every cruel word or doubt or suspi- 
cion. He never rallied ; and the doctors look- 
ed graver and graver, until at last Frank Hal- 
bert died, holding his wife's hand in his. 

The few first weeks of their married life, 
these last sad days of pain and sufferings, 
seemed to her all that she had left to her ; all 
tlie terrible time between she blotted out and 
forgot as best she could, for she would clutch 
her children suddenly in her arms when sicken- 
ing memories overpowered her, and so forget 
and forgive at once. For some time Esther 
was shocked, shaken, nervous, starting at every 
word and every sound, but by degrees she gained 
strength and new courage. When she came to 
Bigorre she was looking better than she had done 
for years ; and no wonder : her life was peaceful 
now, and silent ; cruel sneers and utterances had 
passed out of it. The indignities, all the miseries 
of her past years were over for ever ; only their 
best blessings. Jack and Prissa, remained to 
her; and she prayed with all her tender mother's 
heart that they might grow up different from 
either of their parents, good and strong and wise 
and upright — unlike her, unlike their father. 

The Pentons, who were good-natured people 



294 



TO ESTHER. 



ill their way, had asked her to come ; and Es- j 
ther, who was too lazy to say no, had agreed, j 
afid was grateful to tliem for persuading her to 
accompany them. She liked the place. The 
bells sounding at all tlie hours with their sudden 
musical cadence, the cheery sim, the cavalcades 
arriving from the mountains, the harnesses 
jingling, the country-folks passhig and repass- 
ing, the convents tinkling, Carmes close at 
liand, Carmelites a little farther down the street 
— the streams, the pretty shady walks among 
tlic hills, the pastoral valley where the goats j 
and the cattle were browsing — it was all bright j 
and sunshine and charming. Little Prissa in j 
her big sun-bonnet, and Jack helping to push 
the perambulator, went up every morning to the [ 
Salut, along a road with shady trees growing on 
either side, which led to some baths in the 
mountain. One day the children came home 
in much excitement, to say they had seen a horse 
in a chequed cotton dressing-gown, and with 
two pair of trowsers on. But tlieir greatest de- 
light of all was the Spaniard of Bigorre with 
liis pack. Esther soon grew very tired of see- 
ing him parading about in a dress something be- 
tween a brigand and a circus-rider ; but Prissa | 
.and Jack never wearied, and the dream of their j 
outgoing and incoming was to meet him. Pris- 
sa's other dream of perfect happiness was drink- \ 
ing tea on the terrace at the Chalet with little | 
Geoffry and Lucy and Lena Smith, where they all j 
worshipped the Spaniard together, and told one 
another stories about the funnj horse and the little 
pig that tried, to cat out of Lena's hand. Their 
one trouble was that Mademoiselle Bouchon 
made them tell their adventures in French. At 
all events, they could laugh in English, and she 
never found it out. Lady Mary would come out 
smiling while the tea was going on, and nod her 
kind cap-ribbons at them all. She was a port- 
ly and good-humored person, who did foolisli 
things sometimes, and was fond of interfering 
and trying to make peojile happy her own way. 
She had taken a fancy to Esther, and one day 
— ingenious Lady Mary — she said to herself, 
"I am sure this would do for poor Geoffry : he 
ought to marry. This is the very thing. Dear 
me, I wish he would come here for a day or 
two," and she went back into her room and actu- 
ally wrote to him to come. 

The two ladies went to the service of the 
Carmes that evening. It was the fashion to go 
and listen for the voice of one of the monks. 
There was a bustle of company rustling in ; 
smart people were coming up through the dark- 
ening streets ; old French ladies protected by 
their little maids, arriving with their " Heures " 
in their hands ; lights gleamed in the windows 
here and there, and in the cliapelofthe convent 
a blaze of wax and wick, and artificial flowers, 
and triumphant music. It was a lovely voice, 
thrilling beyond the others, pathetic, with beau- 
tifid tones of subdued passionate expression. 
Tiie Carme who sang to them was a handsome 
young man, very pale, with a black crisp beard : 
his head overlooked the others as tliey came and 



went with their flaming tapers in mystic pro- 
cessions. Was it something in the man's voice, 
some pathetic cadence which recalled other 
tones to which Esther had listened once in her 
life, and that of late years she had scarcely dared 
to remember ? Was it chance, was it fate, was 
it some strange presentiment of his approach, 
which made Esther begin to think of Rome, and 
of Geoffry, and of the days when she first knew 
him, and of tlie time before she married? As 
she thought of old days she seemed to see Smith's 
kind blue eyes looking at lier, and to hear his 
voice sounding through the music. How often 
she had longed to see him — liow well she re- 
membered him — the true heart, the good friend 
of her youth. 

Esther's heart stirred with remembrances of 
things far far away from the convent aud its 
prayers and fastings and penances. Penance 
and fastings and vigils— such things should be 
her portion, she thought, by rights ; and it was 
with a jtang of shame, of remorse, of bitter re- 
gret, and of fresh remorse for tlie pang itself, 
that she rose from her knees — the service over, 
the music silent, and wax-lights extinguished — 
and came out into the night with her friend. 
As they were walking up the street Lady Mary 
said quietly and unconsciously enough, though 
Esther started guiltily, and asked herself if she 
had been speaking her thoughts aloud — 

" Mrs. Halbert, did you ever meet my hus- 
band's cousin, Jctf Smith ? I hear he is in the 
Pyrenees ; I am writing to him to come and 
stay with us, he is such a good fellow." 

Esther, if she had learnt nothing else since 
the old Roman days, had learnt at least to con- 
trol herself and to speak quietly and indiifer- 
ently, though her eyes suddenly filled with tears 
and there came a strange choking in her throat. 
Her companions noticed nothing as Mrs. Hal- 
bert said, " Yes, she had known him at Rome, 
but that she had not seen him for years." 

"Ah, then, you must renew your acquaint- 
ance," Lady Mary said ; adding, abruptly, 
"Do you know, I hear a Carmelite is going to* 
1 make her profession next week ? — we must go. 
j These things are horrible, and yet they fasci- 
nate me somehow." 

"What a touching voice that was," said Es- 
ther. " It aft'ected me quite curiously." To 
which Lady Mary replied, 

" I remember that man last year ; he has not 
had time to emaciate himself to a mummy. He 
] sat next me at the table-d'hote, and we all re- 
marked him for being so handsome and jileasant, 
, and for the quantities of champagne he drank. 
There was a little quiet dark man, his compan- 
ion. They used to go out riding together, and 
sit listening to the music at the Thermes. 
Tiiere was a ball there one night, and I remem- 
j ber seeing the young fellow dancing with a beau- 
tiful Russian princess." 

1 "Well?" said Esther, listening and not lis- 
■ ten ing. 

I " Well, one day he didn't come to dinner, 
and the little dark man sat next me alone. I 



TO ESTHER. 



295 



asked after my neighbor ; heard lie had left the 
place, but Margue'rite — you know the handsome 
chambermaid — told me, under breath, that 
Jean had been desired to take the handsome 
gentleman's portmanteau down on a truck to 
the convent of the Carmes; a monk had re- 
ceived it at the garden-door, and that was all 
she knew. I am sure I recognized my friend 
to-night. He looked as if he knew me when he 
came round with the purse.". 

"Poor thing," said Mrs. Halbert, sighing. 
Esther came home to the hotel, flushed, with 
shining eyes, looking like she used to look ten 
years ago. She found Mrs. Penton asleep in the 
sitting-room, resting her portly person upon the 
sofa. Olga was nodding solemnly over a dubi- 
ous French novel. Mr. Penton was taking a 
nap behind his Gulignani — the lamp was low. 
It all looked inexpressibly dull and common- 
place after the glimpses of other lives which she 
had had that night. She seemed lifted above 
herself somehow by the strains of solemn music, 
by memories of tenderest love and hopeless sepa- 
ration, by (h'eams of what might have been, what 
had been before now, of the devotion which had 
triumphed over all the natural longings and 
aspirations of life. Could it be that these 
placid sleepy people were of the same race and 
make a^ herself and others of whom she had 
heard ? Esther crept away to the room where 
her children were sleeping in their little cots 
with faithful old Spicer stitching by the light of 
a candle. As the mother knelt down by the 
girl's little bed, a great burst of silent tears 
seemed to relieve her heart, and slie cried and 
cried, she scarcely dared tell herself why. 

Have you ever seen a picture painted in black 
and in gold ? Black-robed saints, St. Dominic 
and others, on a golden glory, are the only in- 
stances I can call to mind, except an Italian 
painter's fancy of a golden-haired woman in her 
yellow damask robe, witii a mysterious black 
background behind her. She had a look of my 
heroine, though Esther Halbert is an ugly wom- 
an, and the picture is the likeness of one of those 
beautiful fair-haired Venetians whose beauty 
(while people are still saying that beauty fades 
away and perishes) is ours after all the centuries, 
and has been the munificent gift of Titian and 
his compeers, who .first discerned it, to tiie un- 
known generations that were yet to be born and 
to admire. As one looks at the tender face, it 
seems alive, even now, and one wonders if there 
is light anywhere for the yellow lady. Can she 
see into that gloom of paint moi'e clearly tlian 
into the long gallery where the people are pacing 
and the painters are working at their easels? — 
or is she as blind as the rest of us ? Does she 
gaze unconscious of all that surrounds her ? 
Does she fancy herself only minute particles of 
oil and yellow ochre and coloring matter, never 
guessing that she is a whole, beautiful witli senti- 
ment, alive with feeling and harmony ? 

I dare say she is blind like the rest of us, as 
•Esther was that Friday in July when she came 
hurrying througli the midday sunshine, wiih her 



little son scampering beside her, hiding his head 
from the burning rays among the long folds of 
her black widow's dress. 

At Bigorre, in the Pyrenees, there is one lit- 
tle spot where the sun's rays seem to burn with 
intenser heat — a yellow blaze of light amid black 
and sudden shade. It is a little Place leading 
to the Thermes. In it a black marble fountain 
flows, with a clear limpid stream, and a Roman 
inscription still renders grace for benefits re- 
ceived to the nymph of the healing waters. 
Arched gates with marble corner-stones, windows 
closed and shuttered, form three sides of the lit- 
tle square ; on the fourth there is a garden be- 
hind an iron railing, where tall hollyhocks nod 
their heads, catalpas flower and scent the air, 
and great beds of margue'rites and sad autum- 
nal flowers lead to the flight of black marble 
steps in front of the house. 

Estlier, hurrying along, did not stop to look 
or to notice. She was too busy shielding and 
hel])ing little blinded Jack to skurry across the 
burning desert, as he called it. They reached 
the shady street at last. Jack emerged from his 
mother's skirts, and Esther stopped, hesitated, 
an^ looked back across the place from which 
they had just come. The sun was blinding and 
burning, great dazzling patches were in her 
eyes, and yet — It was absurd ; but she could 
not help thinking that she had seen some one as 
she crossed : a figure that she now seemed to re- 
memher seeing coming down the black marble 
steps of the house in the garden — a figure under 
an umbrella, which put her in mind of some one 
she had known. It was absurd : it was a fan- 
cy, an imagination ; it came to her from the 
foolish thoughts she had indulged in of late. 
And yet she looked to make sure that such was 
the case ; and, turning her head, she perceived 
in the distance a man dressed in white, as peo- 
ple dress in the Pyrenees, walking under a big 
umbrella down the opposite street, which leads 
to the Baths. Esther smiled at her own fancies. 
An nmbrella! why should not an umbrella 
awaken associations ? 

" Come along, mamma," said Jack, who had 
seen nothing but the folds of his mother's dress, 
and who was not haunted by associations as yet. 
" Come along, mamma ; don't stop and think." 
Esther took Jack's little outstretched paw into 
her long slim fingers, but as she walked along 
the shady side of the street — past the Moorish 
shop-fronts arched with black marble, with old 
women gossiping in the interiors, and while Jack 
stared at the passers-by, at a monk plodding by 
with sandalled feet, at a bath-woman balancing 
an enormous machine on her head, or Tonged as 
he gazed at tlie beautiful peaches and knitted 
wool-work piled on the shop-ledges, Esther went 
dreaming back to ten years before, wishing, as 
grown-up people wish, not for the good things 
spread before them, but for those of years long 
gone by — for the fruit long since eaten, or rot- 
ten, or planted in the ground. 

"Mammy, there's the Spaniard. Oh! look 
at his legs," said Jack, " they arc all over rib- 



296 



TO ESTHER. 



bons." And Esther, to please him, smiled and 
glanced at a bandy-legged mountebank dispos- 
ing of bargains to two credulous Britons. 

"Why, there's uncle Penton come back," 
Jack cried in great excitement; "he is buy- 
ing muffetees. Mammy, come and see what 
he has got," cried Jack, trying to tug away his 
hand. 

"Not now, dear," said Esther. The slim 
fingers closed upon Jack's little hand with too 
firm a grasp for him to escape, and he trudges 
on perforce. 

They had almost reached the hotel where they 
lived by this time. The great clock-tower round 
which it is built serves as a landmark and bea- 
con. The place was all alive — ^jangling and 
jingling; voices were calling to one another, 
people passing and repassing along the wooden 
galleries, horses clamping in the courtyard. A 
riding-party had just arrived ; yellow, pink, red- 
capped serving-women were hurrying about, 
showing guests to their chambers or escorting 
them across the road to the dependencies of the 
house. 

As Esther and her little boy were walking 
along the wooden gallery which led to^lier 
rooms, they met Hudson, Mrs. Penton's maid, 
who told them with a sniff that her mistress 
was in the drawing-room. 

"Was Mrs. Penton tired after her journey 
last night?" Esther asked. "I was sorry 
not to be at home to receive her, but I did not 
expect you till to-day." 

" No wonder she's exhausted," said Hudson ; 
" not a cup of tea have we 'ad since we left on 
Tuesday-week. They wanted me to take some 
of their siroppy things. / shan't be sorry to 
see Heaton Place again." 

Hudson was evidently much put out, and Es- 
ther hurried to the sitting-room, where she found 
Mrs. Penton lying down as usual, and Olga, in 
a state of excitement, altering the feathers in 
her hat. 

"How d'ye do, dear?" said Mrs. Penton. 
"We are come back again." 

"We have had a most interesting excursion," 
said Olga, coming up to kiss her sister-in-law. 
"I wish you had cared to leave the children, 
Esther. You might have visited the Lac d'Oo, 
and that most remarkable ruin, St. Bertrand de 
Comminges. In Jamieson's Lives of — " 

"We met such a nice person," interrupted 
Mrs. Penton. "He came to Bigorre Avith us 
in another carriage, but by the same road. He 
knows you, Esther, and he and Olga made great 
friends. They got on capitally over the cathe- 
dral, and he kindly fetched the Murray for us. 
We had left it on the table in the salle-a-manr)ei-, 
and were really afraid we had lost it." And 
Mrs. Penton rambled on for a whole half hour, 
unconscious that no one was listening to her. 

Esther had turned quickly to Olga, and ask- 
ed who this was who knew her. 

" Oh, I dare say you don't remember the 
name," said Olga, rather consciously. " Smith 
— Mr. Smith of Garstein. He told me he had 



known you at Rome, before he came into hi3 
property." 

"Did he say that?" said Esther, flushing a 
little. 

"Or before you married, I really don't re- 
member," said Olga. "We had a great deal 
of conversation, and persuaded him to come 
back to Bigorre." 

" It's so hot at twelve o'clock," Mrs. Penton 
was going on ; "and parasols are quite insuffi- 
cient. Are you fond of extreme heat, Esther ? 
Charles says that Lady Kidderminster, summer 
and winter, always carries a fan in her pocket. 
They are very convenient when they double up, 
and take less — " 

"What sort of looking person is Mr. Smith ?" 
Esther asked, with a little effort. 

" Distinguished -looking, certainly : a long 
red beard, not very tall, but broadly built, and a 
very pleasant gentlemanlike manner. You shall 
see him at the table-d'hote to-day ; he promised 
to join us. In fact," said Olga, " he proposed 
it himself." 

" I heard him," said Mrs. Penton, placidly. 
" Olgn, I think you-have made another conquest. 
I remember," etc. 

Poor Esther could not wait any longer to 
hear Mrs. Penton's reminiscences, or Olga's self- 
congratulations ; she went away quickly with 
Jack to her own room, and got her little Prissa 
into her lap, and made her put her two soft 
arms round her neck and love her. " Mamma, 
why are you crying ?" said Jack ; "we are both 
quite well, and we have been very good indeed, 
lately. Madame Bouchon says I am her petti/ 
marry. I shan't marry her, though. I shall 
marry Lena when I am a man." 

Esther dressed for dinner in her black gauze 
gown, and followed the others to her usual place 
at the long crowded table. Her hands were 
cold, and she clasped them together, reminding 
herself by a gentle pressure that she must be 
quiet and composed, and give no sign that she 
remembered the past. She no longer wore her 
widow's cap, only a little piece of lace in her 
hair, in which good old Spicer took a pride as 
she pinned up the thick braids. Esther's gray 
eyes were looking up and down a little fright- 
ened and anxiously : but there was no one she 
had ever seen before, and she sat down with a 
sigh of relief; only in another minute, some- 
how, there was a little stir, and Olga said — 
"Esther, would you make room?" and popped 
down beside her ; and then Mrs. Ilalbert saw- 
that her sister-in-law was signing to some one to 
come into the seat next beyond her. 

Esther had been nervous and excited, but she 
was suddenly quite herself again. And as 
Smith took his place, he bent forward, and their 
eyes met, and then he put out his hand. " Is 
it my old Esther ?" he thought, with a thrill of 
secret delight ; while Esther, as she gave him 
her slim fingers, said to herself — "Is this my 
old friend ?" — and she looked wistfully to see 
whether she could read his kind, loyal heart, 
stamped in his face as of yore. They were both 



TO ESTHER. 



297 



quite young people again for five minutes ; Olga 
attributed the laughter and high spirits of her 
neighbor to the charms of her own conversation. 
Esther said not one word, did not eat, did not 
drink, but was in a sort of dream. 

After dinner they all got up, and went and 
stood in one of the wooden galleries, watching 
the lilac and gold as it rippled over the mount- 
ains, the Bedat, the Pic du Midi. 

And so this was all, and tlie long-looked-for 
meeting was over. Esther thought it was so 
simple, so natural, she could hardly believe that 
this was what she had hoped for and dreaded so 
long. There was Smith, scarcely changed — a 
little altered in manner perhaps, with a beard 
which improved him, but that was all. All the 
little tricks of voice and of manner, so familiar 
once, were there ; it was himself. She was 
glad, and yet it was not all gladness. Why did 
he not come up to his old friend ? Why did he 
not notice or speak to her ? Why did he seem 
so indift'erent ? Why did he talk so much to 
the others, so little to her ? Mrs. Halbert was 
confused, disappointed, and grieved. And yet 
it was no wonder. She thought that of all peo- 
ple she had least right to expect much from him. 
She was leaning over the side of the gallery, 
Olga stood next to her in her white dress, with 
the light of the sunset in her raven black hair, 
and Smith was leaning against one of the wood- 
en pillars and talking to Olga. He glanced 
from the raven black hair to the gentle bent 
head beyond. But he went on talking to Olga. 
Esther felt a little lonely, a little deserted. Slie 
was used to the feeling, but she sighed, and 
turned away with a suppressed yet impatient 
movement from the beautiful lilac glow. A 
noisy, welcome comfort was in store for her. 
With a burst of childish noise and laughter, 
Prissa and Jacky came rushing up the gallery, 
and jumped upon her with their little eager arms 
wide open. 

" Come for a walk, a little, little short walk, 
please mammy, " said Jack. And Esther kissed 
him, and said yes, if he would fetch her hat and 
her gloves and her shawl. 

As she was going, Smith came up hesitating, 
and said, not looking her full in the face — 

"I had a message from my cousin, to beg 
you to look in there this evening. Miss Hal- 
bert has kindly promised to come." And Es- 
ther, looking up with a reiDroachful glance (so 
he thought), answered very quietly she would 
try to come after her walk. He watched her as 
she walked away down the long gallery with her 
children clinging to her side ; with all the sun- 
set lights and shadows falling upon them as 
they went. " What a pretty picture it makes," 
he said to Miss Halbert. 

" I'm so glad you think Esther nice-looking," 
said Olga. " It is not every body who does. 
Shall we take a stroll towards the music, Mr. 
Smith ?...." 

Esther had no heart for the music and com- 
pany, and wandered away into a country road. 
All the fields of broad Indian-corn leaves were 



glowing as the three passed along : low bright 
streaks lay beyond the western plains, and a still 
evening breeze came blowing and gently stirring 
the flat green leaves, Jacky and Prissa were 
chattering to one another. Esther could not 
speak very much ; her heart was too full. Was 
she glad — was she sad ? What had she expect- 
ed ? Was this the meeting she had looked for 
so long? "He might have spoken one word 
of kindness, he might have said something more 
than that mere How do you do ? Of course he 
was indifferent — how could it be otherwise ? but 
he might have shammed a little interest," poor 
Esther thought ; " only a very little would have 
satisfied me." 

It was quite dark when she reached Lady 
Mary's, after seeing her children to bed. Olga, 
and Mr. Penton, and Smith were there already, 
and Lady Lucy was singing, when Ksther came 
into the great, bare, dark room. The young 
lady was singing a little French song in the 
dimness, with a pathetic, pleasant tune — "Si 
tu savais," its name was. She gave it with 
charming expression, and when she had fin- 
ished, they were all silent for a moment or 
two, until Lady Mary began to bustle about 
and to pour out the tea. 

"Take this to Mrs. Halbert, Geoffry," she 
said, "and tell her about my scheme for to- 
morrow, and persuade her to come." 

Smith brought the tea as he was bid. 

"We all want to go over to Grippe, if you 
will come too," he said. 

He looked down kindly at her as he spoke, 
and the poor foolish woman flushed up with 
pleasure as she agreed to join them. She was 
sorry afterwards when she, and Olga, and Mr. 
Penton walked home together through the dark 
streets. 

" I wonder whether Mr. Smith means to join 
all our excursions," said Miss Halbert. "I 
just mentioned my wish to see Grippe, and he 
jumped at it directly." 

Esther felt a chill somehow as Mr. Penton 
answered — 

" Certainly, I — a — remarked it, Olga ; you-a- 
are not — perhaps aware that you have attrac- 
tions — to a — no common degree. Mr. Smith 
has certainly — a — discovered them." 

Poor Esther! it seemed hard to meet her 
old friend at last, only to see how little hs re- 
membered her; and yet she thought, "All is 
as it should be ; and with my Jacky and my 
Prissa to love, I am not to be pitied." Only, 
there was a strange new ache in her heart next 
morning, when they all assembled after the 
early breakfast ; she could not feel cheery and 
imconscious like Lady Mary, or conscious and 
flattered like Olga. The children in their clean 
cotton frocks were in raptures, and so far Es- 
ther was happj'. 

The road to Grippe is along a beautiful mossy 
valley, with a dashing stream foaming over the 
pebbles, and with little farms and homesteads 
dotting the smooth green slopes. Olga and 
Smith were on horseback ; Penton was also 



298 



TO ESTHER. 



bumping majestically along upon a huge bay ! 
mare ; Esther and Lady Mary, and the Smith 
children and her own, were packed away into a 
big carriage with Mdlle. Bouchon, and little 
Geoffry Smith on the box. The children were 
in a state of friskiness wliich seriously alarmed 
the two mammas. They seemed to have at 
least a dozen little legs apiece. Their screams 
of laughter reached the equestrians, who were 
keeping up a somewhat solemn conversation 
upon the beauties of nature, and the cultivation 
of Indian corn : Geoifry wondered what all the 
fun might be, and Olga remarked that the chil- 
dren were very noisy, and that Esther certainly 
spoilt little Jack. 

"Lady Kidderminster strongly advises his 
being sent to a preparatory school," said Pen- 
ton, with a jog between each word ; while 
Smith looked up at the blue sky, flien down 
into the green valley, and forgot all about his 
two companions, trying to catch the tones of 
the woman he had loved. 

The chalet was a little rough unfinished place 
at the foot of the Pic, -where people come to 
drink milk out of clean wooden bowls : the ex- 
cursionists got down, and the horses were put 
up. The whole party crowded round the wood 
fire, and peeped at the rough workmen and 
siiepherds who were playing cards in the next 
compartment — room it could not be called, for 
the walls were only made of bars of wood at a 
certain distance from each other. The chil- 
dren's delight at seeing all over the house at 
once was unbounded. Jacky slipped his hand 
between the wooden bars, and insisted on shak- 
ing hands with a great rouph road-maker in a 
sheepskin, who smiled kindly at the little fel- 
low's advances. 

Lady Mary was very much disappointed and 
perplexed to see the small result of her kindly 
schemes. It was unbelievable that Geoifry 
should prefer that great, uninteresting, self- 
conscious Miss Ilalbert, to her gentle and ten- 
der little widow ; and yet it was only too evi- 
dent. What could be the reason of it? She 
looked from one to the other. Esther was sit- 
ting by the fire on a low wooden stool. She 
seemed a little sad, a little drooping. The 
cliild.ren were laughing about her as usual ; 
and she was holding a big wooden bowl full of 
milk, from which they sipped when they felt 
inclined. The firelight just caught the golden 
tints in her brow^n thick hair; her hat was on 
the floor at her feet; little Prissa — like her, 
and not like her — was peeping over her shoul- 
der. It was a pretty picture : the flame, the 
rough and quaint simplicity of the place, seemed 
to give it a sort of idyllic grace. As for Smith, 
he was standing at the paneless window looking 
out at the view ; all the light was streaming 
through his red beard. It was a straight and 
well-set figure, Lady Mary thought ; he looked 
well able to take care of himself, and of her 
poor gentle Estlier too. He was abstracted — 
evidently thinking of something besides the 
green valleys and pastures — could it, could it 



be that odious affected woman stuck up in an 
attitude in the middle of the room who was the 
object of his dreams ? 

An odd jumble of past, present, and future 
was running through Geoffry's mind, as he look- 
ed out of the hole in the wall, and speculated 
upon what was going to hapjjen to him here in 
this green pasture-land by the side of the cool 
waters. Were they waters of comfort — was hap- 
piness his own at last? somewhat sadly he 
thought to himself that it was not now what it 
would have been ten years ago. He could look 
at the happiest future with calmness. It did 
not daz/.le and transport him as it would have 
done in former times — he was older, more in- 
different : he had seen so many things cease 
and finish, so many fancies change, he had 
awakened from so many vivid dreams, that now 
perhaps he was still dreaming ; life had only be- 
come a light sleep, as it were, from which he oft- 
en started and seemed to awaken. Even Esther 
.... what did it all mean ? did he love her 
less now that he had seen her, and found her 
unchanged, sweeter, if possible — and he could 
not help thinking it — not indifierent? Would 
the charm vanish with the difficulties, as the 
beauty of a landscape ends where the flat and 
prosperous plains begin? He did not think so 
— he thought so— he loved her — he mistrusted 
her ; he talked to Olga, and yet he could not 
keep his eyes from following Esther as she came 
and went. All she said, all she did, seemed to 
him like some sort of music whicli modulates 
and changes from one harmonious thing to an- 
other. A solemn serenity, a sentiment of word- 
i less emotion was hers, and withal, the tender 
j waywardness and gentle womanliness which 
had always seemed to be part of her. She was 
not handsome now, any more than she had ever 
I been — the plain lines — the heavy hair — the deep- 
l set eyes were the same — the same as those eyes 



[ Smith could remember in Roman gardens, in 

; palaces with long echoing galleries, looking at 
iiim through imploring tears on the Pincian Hill. 
Tiiey had haunted him for seven years since he 
first caught the trick of watching to see them 
brighten. Now, tliey brightened when the two 
little dark-headed children came running to her 
knee. Eaphael could find no subject that 
pleased him better. Smith was no Raphael, 
but he, too, thought that among all the beauti- 
ful pictures of daily life there is no combination 
so simple, so touching as that of children who 

' are clinging about their mother. And these 
pictures are to be seen everywhere and in every 
clime and place ; no galleries are needed, no 
price need be paid; the background is of endless 
variety, the sun shines, and the mother's face 
brightens, and all over the world, perhaps, the 
children come running into her arms. White 
arms or dusk}', bangled or braceleted, or scarred 
with labor, they open, and the little ones, 

I clasped within loving walls, feel they are safe. 
Quite oblivious of some observation of Miss 
Halbert's, Smith suddenly left his window and 
walked across to the fij.-e, and warmed his hands, 



TO ESTHER. 



299 



and said some little words to Esther, who was 
still sitting on her low seat. She was liurt and 
annoyed by his strange constraint and distance 
of manner. She answered coldly, and got up 
by a sudden impulse, and walked away to where 
Lady Mary was standing cutting bread-and-but- 
ter for the children. "Decidedly," thought 
the elder lady, " things are going wrong. I 
will ask GeoftVy to-night what he thinks of my 
widow." "I am a fool for my pains," GeoftVy 
thought, standing by the fire, "and she is only 
a hard-hearted flirt after all." 

He was sulky and out of temper all the way 
back. In vain did Olga ransack her brain, and 
produce all lier choicest platitudes for his enter- 
tainment. In vain Penton recalled his genteel- 
est reminiscences. Smith answered civilly, it is 
true, but briefly and constrainedly. He was a 
fool to have come, to have fancied that such de- 
votion as his could be appreciated or understood 
by a woman who liad shown herself once already 
faithless, fickle, unworthy. Smitli forgot, in 
his odd humility and mistrust of himself, that 
he too had held back, made no advance, kept 
aloof, and waited to be summoned. 

Geoifry liad the good liabit of rising early, 
and setting out for long walks across the hills 
before the great heat came to scorch up all ac- 
tivity. The water seemed to sparkle more 
brightly than later in the day. The flowers 
glistened with fresh dew. Opal morning lights, 
with refractions of loveliest color, painted the 
hills and brooks, the water-plants, the fields 
where the women were working alread}^, and 
the slippery mountain-sides where the pine-trees 
grew, and the flocks and goats with their tink- 
ling bells were grazing. It was a charming 
medley of pastoral sights and scent and fresh 
air : shadows trembling and quivering, bii'ds 
fluttering among the green, clear-cut ridges of 
the hills, the water bubbling among reeds and 
creeping plants and hanging ferns, among which 
beautiful dragon-flies were darting. Smith had 
been up to the top of the Bedat, and was coming 
down into civilized life again, when he stopped 
for an instant to look at the bubbling brook 
which was rusldng along its self-made ravine, 
some four or five feet below the winding path ; 
a field lay beyond it, and farther still, skirting 
the side of a hill, the pretty lime-tree walk 
wliich leads to tlie baths in the mountain. 
Smith, who had been thinking matters over as 
he stumbled down the steep pathway, and set- 
tling that it was too late — siie did not care for 
him — he liad ceased caring for her — best go, and 
leave things as they were — suddenly came upon a 
group which touclicd and interested him, and 
made him wonder whether, after all, prudence and 
good sense were always the wisest and the most 
prudent of things. ' In the middle of the stream, 
some thousand years ago, a great rock had 
rolled down from tiie heights above, and sunk 
into the bed of the stream, with the water rush- 
ing and bubbling all round it, and the water- 
lilies floating among tlie ripjiles. . . . Perched 
on the rock, like the naiad of tlie stream, was 



Esther, with Jacky and Prissa clinging close to 
her, and sticking long reeds and water-leaves 
into her hair. The riverkin rushed away, 
twisting and twirling and disajipearing into 
green. The leaves and water-plants swayed 
with the ripples, the children wriggled on their 
narrow perch, while Esther, with a book in her 
hand, and a great green umbrella, looked bright, 
and kind, and happy. 

" Cousin Jeff", cousin Jeff!" cried little Jack, 
in imitation of the little Smiths, " come into the 
Steamer, there's lots of room." 

" How d'ye do?" said his mother, still laugh- 
ing. 

I "How d'ye do, Mrs. Undine ?" said Smith, 
brightening and coming to the water's edge. 

As Smith walked back to his breakfast, he 
thought to himself — " If she would but give me 
' one little sign that she liked me, I think — I think 
' I could not help speaking." 
I And Lady Mary, who had her little talk out 
with her cousin after breakfast, discovered, to 
\ her great surprise, that what she had thought of 
' as a vague possibility some day, very far off, was 
not impossible, and might be near at hand af- 
I ter all. She did not say much to Smith, and 
' he did not guess how much she knew of all 
I that was passing in his mind. "He will go 
; away, he will never come forward unless Esther 
meets him half-way," the elder lady thought to 
herself, as he left the room; and she longed to 
speak to Esther, but she could not summon cour- 
age, though opjjortunity was not wanting. 
j They were all standing in the balcony of the 
chalet that very afternoon, watching the people 
! go by: but first one cliild went away, then an- 
other, and at last Lady Mary and Esther were 
left alone. " Look at that team of oxen drag- 
ging the great trunks of the trees," said Lady 
Mary; "how picturesque the peasant people 
are in their mountain dress!" 

"The men look so well in their berets," Es- 
ther said ; "that is a fine-looking young felluw 
who is leading the cart. There is Mr. Smith 
crossing the street — he would look very well in 
a beret, with his long red beard." 

" Certainly he would," said Lady Mary ; and 
then she suddenly added, " Esther, would you 
do me a favor? You have been talking of go- 
ing to the fair at Tarbes to-morrow. I shall 
be obliged to stay at home witli my husband 
and Lucy. Would you bring GeoftVy a beret, 
and give it to him, and make him wear it? I 
know you will if I ask you." 

"A red, or a blue one ?" said Esther, smiling. 
"The nicest you can get," said Lady Mary. 
"Thank you very much indeed." 

Lady Kidderminster, who must have employ- 
ed her time well while she was in the Pyrenees, 
" had been very much struck by Tarbes," Mr. 
Penton declared. "It is pleasantly situated," 
Murray says, "on the clear Adour, in the midst 
of a fertile plain in full view of the Pyrenees. 
Public walks contribute to the public health and 
iccreation. The market-people, in their vari- 
ous costumes, are worth seeing." 



TO ESTHER. 



Geoftry Smith received a short note from 
Mrs. Penton two mornings after the Grippe ex- 
pedition. It ran as follows : — 

"Dear Mr. Smith— Mr. Penton is plan- 
ning an excursion to Tarbes to-day. We start 
at two, so that we may not miss our lunch, as it 
is not safe to trust^o chance for it, and we should 
be much pleased for you to join us after, but in 
case of rain we should give it up. Unfortunate- 
ly, thei-e appears no chance of any thing so re- 
freshing. Sincerely yours, 

"MiRA Pentox." 

To which Smith, who was rather bewildered, 
briefly answered that he should be delighted to 
join them at the station at two. The station 
was all alive with country-folks, in their quaint 
pretty dresses, berets, red caps and blue-brown 
hoods, and snooded gay-colored kerchiefs, and 
red cloaks like ladies' opera-cloaks. The faces 
underneath all these bright trappings were sad 
enough, with brown wistful eyes, and pinched 
worn cheeks. Ruskin has written of mountain 
gloom and mountain glory, and in truth the 
dwellers among the hills seem to us, who live 
upon the plain, sad and somewhat oppressed. 

Smith looked here and there for his party, 
and discovered, rather to his dismay, only Olga, 
her sister and her brother-in-law, sitting on a 
bench together. Then Esther had not come, af- 
ter all ? He felt inclined to escape and go back 
to the town, but Olga caught sight of him, and 
graciously beckoned. 

" Mrs. Ilalbert is not coming, I am afraid," 
said Smith, shaking hands. 

" Esther, do you mean ?" asked Mrs. Penton. 
" She was here a minute ago. Jacky took her 
to look at a pig. — Was it a pig or a goat, Olga ? 
I didn't notice." 

Mrs. Penton's naive remarks gave Smith a 
little trouble sometimes, and he could not al- 
ways su])press a faint amusement. Fortunately 
Esther came up at this moment, and he could 
smile without giving offense. 

Esther at one time had not meant to come, 
but she could not resist the children's entreat- 
ies, or trust them to the Pentons alone. She 
was weary and dispirited ; she had passed a 
wakeful, feverish niglit. How or when or 
where it began, she did not know, but she was 
conscious now that in her heart of hearts she 
had looked to meet Geoffry again some day, 
and hoped and believed that he would be un- 
changed. But she now saw that it was not 
so — he liked her only as he liked other people, 
with that kindly heart of his — no thought of 
what had been, occurred to him. He might be 
a friend, a pleasant acquaintance, but the friend 
of old, never, never again. How foolish she 
had been, how unwomanly, how forward. Even 
at seven-and-twenty Esther could blush like a 
girl to think how she had thought of Geoffry. 
She whose heart should be her children's only ; 
she who had rejected his afl'ection when it might 
have been hers ; she who had been faithless and 



selfish and remorseful so long — she was glad al- 
most to suffer now, in her self-anger and vexa- 
tion. In future she thought she would try to 
be brave and more simple ; she would love her 
darlings and live for them only ; and perhaps 
some day it might be in her power to do some- 
thing for him — to do him some service — and 
wlien they were very old people she might tell 
him one day how truly she had been his friend 
all her life. 

The sun was blazing and burning up every 
thing. The train stopped at a bridge, and they 
all got down from their carriages, and set off 
walking towards the market. Squeak, chatter, 
jingle of bells, screaming of babies, jiigs and 
pigs and pigs ; pretty gray oxen, with carts 
yoked to their horns, priests, a crowd assembled 
round an old woman with a sort of tripod, upon 
which you placed your foot for her to blacken 
and smarten your shoes; mantillas, green and 
red umbrellas, rows of patient-looking women, 
with sad eyes, holding their wares in their 
hands — scraggy fowls, small little pears, a cab- 
bage, perhaps Isrought from over the mountain, 
a few potatoes in a shabby basket ; — the scar- 
city and barrenness struck Smith very sadly. 
Esther was quite affected ; she was emptying 
her purse and putting little pieces right and 
left into the small thin hands of the children. 
They passed one stall where a more prosperous- 
looking couple — commer9ants from Toulouse — 
were disposing of piles of blue and red Pyrene- 
an caps. Esther stopped and called Jack to 
her, and tried a small red heret on his dark 
curly head, and kissed her little son as she did 
so. She had not seen Smith, who was close 
behind her with Olga, and who smiled as he 
watched her performance. Miss Halbert, soon 
after leaving the railway-carriage, had com- 
plained of fotigue, and taken poor Geoffry firm- 
ly but gently by the arm, with a grasp that it 
was impossiijle to elude. Esther scarcely no- 
ticed them : she walked on with her children 
as usual, and her motherly heart was melting 
over the little wan babies, whose own mothers 
found it so hard a struggle to support them. 
They were lying in the vegetable-baskets on 
the ground, or slung on to their mothers' backs, 
and staring with their dark round ej-es. Some 
of the most flourishing among them had little 
smart caps, with artificial flowers, tied under 
their chins. After buying Jack's beret, Mrs. 
Halbert seemed to hesitate, and then making 
up her mind she asked for another somewhat 
larger, which she paid for, and she turned to 
Smith with one of her old bright looks and gave 
it him, saying — 

"I tliiiik you would look very well in a heret, 
Mr. Smith— don't you like a blue one best ?" 

Smith wore his beret all day ; but Olga the 
inevitable held iiim, and would not let him go. 
Esther thought it a little hard, only she was de- 
termined not to think about it. They wander- 
ed for hours through the bare burning streets. 
There seemed to be no shade : the brooks 
sparkled, bright blazing flowers grew in gar- 



TO ESTHER. 



301 



dens, the houses were close shuttered, scarcely 
any one was to be seen ; little bright-plumaged 
birds came and drank at the streams, and flew 
away stirring the dust. The children got tired 
and cross and weary ; the elders' spirits sank. 
Some one, standing at a doorway, told them of 
a park, which sounded shady and refreshing, 
and where they thought they would wait for 
tlieir train. The road lay along a white lane 
with a white wall on cither side, and dusty pop- 
lars planted at regular intervals. Esther tried 
to cheer the children, and to tell tliem stories 
as well as she could in the clouds of dust. Mrs. 
Penton clung to her husband, Olga hung heavi- 
ly upon Geoffry's aching arm. . . . They 
readied the gates of the park at last. It was 
an utter desolation inclosed behind iron rail- 
ings — so it seemed, at least, to the poor moth- 
er : ragged shrubs, burning sun, weeds and rank 
grass growing along the neglected gravel walks. 
There was a great white museum or observa- 
tory in the middle to which all these gravel 
paths converged ; and there was — yes, at last ! 
there was a gloomy-looking clump of laurel and 
fir-trees, where she thought she might perhaps 
find some shade for Jack and for Prissa. As 
ehe reached the place, it was all she could do 
hot to burst out crying, she was so tired, so 
troubled, and every minute the dull aching at 
lier heart seemed to grow worse and worse. 
Poor Esther ! The others came up and asked 
her if she would not like to see the view from 
the observatory ; but she shook her head, and 
said she was tired, and should stay where she 
was with Prissa, and they all went away and 
left her. One French lady went by in her slip- 
pers, with a faded Indian scarf and an old Leg- 
horn hat, discoursing as she went to some neg- 
lected-looking children — 

"Savez-vous, ma fille, que vous faites des 
grimaces ; ce n'est pas joli, mon enfant, il faut 
vous surveiller, mon He'lene. Les grimaces ne 
se font pas dans la bonne socio te'. . . . Le pare 
est vaste," she continued, changing the subject; 
her voice dwindled away into the arid, burning 
distance, and the desolation seemed greater 
than ever. . . . It seemed to Esther as if hours 
and hours had passed since the others had left 
her. . . . Prissa was languidly listening to 
the story poor Esther was still trying to tell. 

" Why don't you make it more funny, mam- 
ma ? You say the same things over and over. 
I don't like this story at all," said Prissa. 

"I have some good news for you," said 
Smith, cheerfully, appearing from behind the 
laurels. " Mrs. Halbert, wehave only just time 
to catch the train. Come, Jack, I'm going to 
be your horse; get up on my back," and Geof- 
fry set off running with the delighted Jack, just 
as Olga appeared in search of him. 

Esther and Prissa set off running too, and the 
Pentons followed as best they could. 

The little station was again all alive and 
crowded by peasants and countrywomen, Span- 
ish bandits with their packs, three English tour- 
ists in knickerbockers. Smith met them with 



Jack capering at his side, and swinging by his 
new friend's hand — 

" I have taken the tickets,-" he said. "Thank 
goodness, we have done with Tarbes. What a 
horrible hole it is." 

"I am surprised," Penton remarked, "that 
Lady Kidderminster should have had such a 
high opinion of this — a — position. She jjartic- 
ularly mentioned an amphitheatre of which I 
can gain no information." 

" Oh, dear ! we shall never get in in time for 
the table-d'h6t3," fiiintly gasped Mrs. Penton, 
sinking into a seat, "and the dinner will be 
over. " 

The benches were full, and they were all 
obliged to disperse here and there as they could 
find places. Esther perched herself upon a 
packing-case once more, with little Prissa half 
asleep on her knee. What a dreary day she 
had spent — she gave a sigh of relief to think it 
was over. 

"Have you room here for Jack?" said Geof- 
fry, coming up. "He won't own he is tired." 

" Come, my son," said Esther, putting her 

arm round the boy, and pulling him up beside 

her. " You have been very good to Jack, Mr. 

Smith," she said, with an upward look of her 

' clear eyes. 

Smith looked at her. 

" It seems very strange," he said, with a sud- 
den emotion, " to meet you again like this. I 
sometimes wonder whether we are indeed you 
and me, or quite different people." 

" I thought," said Esther, " you had forgotten 
that we had ever been friends, Mr. Smith." 

"I thought you had forgotten it," said Smith, 
very crossly. There was a jar in liis voice — 
there was a mist before her eyes. She was tired, 
vexed, overdone. Poor Esther suddenly burst 
into tears. 

" My dear, my dear, don't cry," said Smith. 
' 'What can I say to beg your pardon ? you should 
have known me better — you . . ." 

" I can not understand about that amphithea- 
tre," said Mr. Penton, coming up. "Murray, 
you see, does not allude to it." 

" Why don't you go and ask the man at the 
ticket-office ?" said Smith authoritatively, and 
Penton, rather bewildered, obeyed. 

"I was a little afraid of you," said Smith, 
when I first saw yon. I tried to keep away, but 
I could not help myself and came. I should 
have gone to the end of the world if you had been 
there. I have never changed — never forgotten. 
I love you as I have always loved you. Dear 
Esther, say something to me ; put me out of this 
horrible suspense — " 

" What a fearful crowd ; how it does crush 
one," said Mrs. Penton, suddenly appearing. 
"Can you tell me where Charles has hidden 
himself? He put my eau-de-Cologne in his pock- 
et, and really in this crowd . . . ." 

Esther could not answer. She was bending 
over Prissa, and trying to hide her tears. Smith 
politely pointed out the ticket-office to Mrs. 
Penton, and then, with great gravity, turned his 



TO ESTHEE. 



back upon the lady, and took Esthers hand, and j 
said with his kind voice, " Dear Esther, once you 
used not be afraid of telling me wlint you 
thought. Won't you speak to me now ? Indeed 
I am the same as I was then." 

"And I am not the same?" said Esther, 
smiling, witli her sweet face still wet with tears ; 
and w^ith a tender Esther-like impulse she took 
her children's two little hands and put them into 
Geoffry's broad palm. 

Geoifry understood her, though he did not 
know all she meant. The Pentons joined them 
again, and the train came up, and the others , 
wearily sank into their places, but I\Irs, Halbert's ' 
fatigue was gone. All the way back neither 
Smith nor Esther spoke one word to each other. 
The sun was setting ; all the land was stream- 
ing with liglit ; the stars were beginning to shine 
behind the hills when they got back to Bigorre. 

" Shall you be too tired to come for a walk 
after dinner?" said Smith, as he left Esther at the 
door of the inn ; and in the evening he came for 
her ; and, though Olga looked puzzled and not 
over-pleased, Esther put on her hat, and said, 

"I am ready, Mr. Smith." And they went 
out together without any explanation. 

They went up the pretty lime-tree walk which 
leads to tlie batlis of the Sahit. People were 
sitting in the dark on the benches talking in 
low evening whispers. Priests were taking their 
recreation, and pacing up and down in groups. 
From the valley below came an occasional tinkle 
of goats' bells, a fresh smell of wild thyme, a 
quizzing of crickets. The wain was moving 
over the hillside, the lights twinkled from the 
houses in tiie town ; and Smith and Esther 
talked and talked, counting over the fears, tlie 
doubts, and the perplexities of the last few days. 
Now, for the first time, Esther felt a comfort 
and security which had never been hers before, 
— not even in the first early days of her mar- 
riage ; not since the time when she bade Smith 
farewell on the Pincio. It seemed to her now 
as if all care for the future, all bewilderment 
and uncertainty, were over. It was all real to 
her — vivid, overwhelming. Here was the faith- 
ful friend once more ready to do battle for her 
with the difficulties of life : reatly to shield, and 
to serve, and encourage to decide — to tell her 
what was right ; and poor Esther had long felt 
that to her decision was like a great pain and 
impossibility. But here was Smith to advise, 
and it seemed to her as if troubles and difficul- 
ties became like strong places now that he was 
there. His manner of looking at life was un- 
like that of the people among whom she had 
been living: he seemed to see things from a 
different level, and yet she felt as if he only 
saw clearly, and that every thing he said was 
right and true. Some people, as I have said, 
seem by intuition to see only truth and riglit ; 
others must needs work out their faith by fail- 
ing and sorrow. They realize truth by the pain 
of what is false, honor through dishonor, right 
by wrongs repented of with bitter pangs. And 
Esther had long felt that this was her fate. She 



did not realize all that she understood later — 
only she felt it somehow; she drifted into a 
peaceful calm ; she seemed suddenly and un- 
awares to be gliding tlirough still waters after 
the tempest, and a thankful song of praise went 
up from her heart. 

When she awoke in the morning she knew 
that he was near at hand; she heard his kind 
voice, and the children's prattle down in tlie 
courtyard below. Later in the day he would 
come up to see her, and they talked over old 
days, and the new days seemed to siiine witii a 
sudden gleam now tliat he had come into them ; 
the dull hours went more swiftly, the sky seem- 
ed brighter ; evening came full of sweet tones, 
mysterious lights, and peace and perfume ; peo- 
ple passing by seemed strolling, too, in a golden 
beatitude. They too, Esther fancied, surely 
must feel the sweetness and depth of the twi- 
light. The morning came with a bright flash, 
not dawning with a great weight of pain and 
listlessness as before. In the hot blaze of the 
mid-day sun Geoifry would enter the shaded 
room where the women were sitting at work by 
the window. 

To Esther it was very real — to Geoffry it was 
still like a memory of old times, to be sitting 
with Esther at an open window, with the shad- 
ows of the orange-trees lying on the floor where 
the shade of the a^vning did not reach. Jack 
liked playing with the shadows, putting his lit- 
tle leg out into the sunshine, and pulling it back, 
to try and cheat the light and carry some awnj ; 
but Prissa (her grown-up name was to be Pris- 
cilla) liked best sitting quietly on her mother's 
knee, and, as it were, staring at the stories she 
told lier with great round eyes. The story broke 
oft' abruptly when Smith came in, and another 
tale began. It seemed like a dream to Gcoftry 
to find himself sitting there, with Esther, at an 
open window, with the sounds and the sunshine 
without, sounds of horses at the water, of the 
water rushing, of voices calling to each other, 
of sudden bursts of bells from the steeples of 
Bagneres de Bigorre. It was as if all the years 
were not, and he was his old self again. Can 
you fancy what it was to him after his long wait- 
ing, long resignation, long hopelessness, to find 
himself with his heart's desire there before him 
and within his grasp? Can you w-onder tliat 
for a little while he almost doubted his own lin]i- 
piness, and lived on in the past instead of the 
present ? Death, indiff'erence, distance, other 
men and women, years, forget fulness, chance, 
and human frailty, had all come between them 
and divided them, and now, all these things sur- 
mounted, like a miracle these two seemed to be 
brought together again, only divided by a re- 
membrance. 

Some things are so familiar, so natural, that 
while they last they seem almost eternal, and as 
if they had been and would be forever. They 
suit us, and harmonize and form part of ourselves 
and of our nature, and so far in truth they are 
eternal if we ourselves are eternal, with our won- 
dering and hopes and faithful love. 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



Why should we faint and fear to live alone, 
Since all alone so Heaven has willed we die ? 
Not e'en the tenderest heart and next our own 
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh." 



I. 

One afternoon Dr. Rich rode up as usual 
to the door of Dumbleton House ; he passed 
in through the iron gates, came up tlie sweep 
along which the lilac-trees were beginning to 
scatter their leaves, and then he dismounted at 
the stone steps under the portico (it was a red 
brick house with a Grecian portico), rang the 
bell, and asked if Miss Berners was at home. 

He was shown into the drawing-room — a 
pleasant, long, ground-floor room, full of com- 
fortable chairs and sofas, with windows through 
which you saw the garden, the autumn flowers 
all aglow, the sun setting behind the trees. 
One or two tall pictures of Dumbletons who 
had once lived in the long drawing-room, and 
walked in the garden, hung upon the walls. 
There was a pleasant perfume of hot-house 
flowers and burning wood. The room was hot, 
be-chintzed, be-perfumed ; Horatia, dressed in 
a black velvet gown, was sitting by the fire. 

She got up to welcome the doctor. He 
thought that this black-velvet lady, with the 
glowing window behind her, was like a picture 
he had seen somewhere ; or had he read about 
it ? or had he dreamt it ? Somehow, he knew 
she was going to say, "We are going away; 
good-bye!" And Horatia gave him her hand, 
and said — 

"Oh, Doctor Rich ! — I am so sorry — my aunt 
tells me we are going away !" 

" Well," he said, wondering a little at this 
odd realization, " I am sorry to lose my patient. 
Though, in truth, I had meant to tell you to- 
day that you yourself can best cure yourself. 
All you want is regular exercise and living, and 
occupation. And this is physic I can not tell 
the chemist to put up in a bottle and send you." 

" What makes you think I want occupa- 
tion?" said Horatia, a little angry, and not 
over-pleased. 

"Don't most women?" said the doctor, 
smiling. "Don't I find you all like prisoners 
locked up between four walls, with all sorts of 
wretched make-shift employments, to pass away 
time ? Why, this room is a very pretty prison, 
U 



but a great deal too hot to be a wholesome 
one. " 

"You are right ; I am a prisoner," said Hora- 
tia, in her velvet gown ; "but I assure you I 
work very hard." The doctor looked doubtful. 
"Shall I tell you what I do?" she went on. 
"This is not the first time you speak in this 
way." 

"It is an old observation of mine," Doctor 
Rich said, "and I can not help repeating, that 
women in your class of life have not enough to do." 

"That is because you do not know : take my 
life, for instance ; I never have a moment to 
myself. I have to keep up, correspond, make 
appointments, dine, drive, drink tea, with three 
or four hundred people all as busy and over- 
tired as I am. I go out to dinner, to a party, 
to a ball almost every night in the season. All 
the morning I shop and write letters ; all the 
afternoon I drive about here and there, and drink 
five-o'clock tea. I am never alone ; I must for 
ever be talking, doing, attending, coming, going. 
Is not this work for ten women, instead of one 
poor, unhappy, tired-out creature like myself?" 
cried she, strangely excited. 

Dr. Rich was a soft-hearted man, especially 
so when he thought of Horatia, and he said 
kindly, " That does, indeed, seem a dreadful 
life to me. Can't I help you ? Can't I pre- 
scribe some more rational scheme of existence ? " 

"No, no; nobody, nothing can save me," 
said Miss Berners. "I am utterly jaded, bat- 
tered, wearied out. I owe every thing to my 
aunt. I must go her ways and lead her life : 
there is no help for me." 

" But you might, perhaps," said the doctor, 
hesitating — " perhaps — " 

"No!" cried Horatia, with some emotion, 
"I shall never marry ! if that is what you mean. 
Ten or fifteen years ago it might have been : 
but now — now I am ashamed to look people in 
the face when she tries. . . . What dreadful 
things I am saying I — but, all the same, I must 
go on, and on, and on. There is no rest fur 
me except where the weary go in time. Where 
— where — " She finished her sentence by burst- 
ing out crying. 



30G 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



Dr. Rich thouplit there was some excuse for 
her. He went uj) to one of the windows, and, 
pushing aside the flower-stand, opened it wide, 
and looked out into the garden. Tlien he walk- 
ed up and down tiie room once or twice, and 
then he came back to tlie fire. It was a tall 
old cliimney-piece, round which the Dumble- 
tons (the masters of the house) had assembled 
for two centuries and more. A lady let into 
the wall, with a pearl necklace and powdered 
hair, seemed to look him full in the face, and 
nod her head once or twice. 

Horatia had sunk down on a low sort of couch, 
and was wiping her tears away. The fresh 
gust of air which had blown in through tlie open 
window cheered and revived her more than any 
consoling remarks or talking. When she had 
wiped her tears, she looked up, and he saw all 
the lines that care had written under tliose dark 
eyes, and he was suddenly filled with immense 
sympathy, pity, liking. For a moment he was 
silent, and then he made a great resolve, and 
he said, in a low voice, 

"I think I could help you, if you would let 
me. Instead of being a straw in a whirlpool, 
how would you like to come and stagnate in a 
pond ? How would you like to be a country 
doctor's wife?" 

Horatia blushed up, started with amazement, 
and then leant back among her cushions to hide 
her agitation, wiiile Dr. Rich went on to say, 
with extra deliberation, that social diff'erences 
had never impressed him greatly — that he could 
not see why a fine lady should not take a turn 
at every-day life ; " for it is at best only a very 
commonplace, every-day life that I have to offer 
you," he said smiling. 

He was apt to be a little didactic ; but he had 
soon finished his speech, and he waited for Ho- 
ratia to begin hers. 

"I am so surprised," she said, trying to speak 
steadily. "I — I don't — you don't know me, 
Dr. Rich." 

The doctor answered, still at his ease, that 
he had wished to marry for some time past, that 
he did not expect his sister, who had been his 
housekeeper, to remain with him always, that 
he had never fancied any body in the neighbor- 
hood, and it seemed to him that this arrange- 
ment might make them both more happy than 
they had either of them been hitherto. He 
spoke so quietly and deliberately (it was his 
way when he was excited) that Horatia never 
guessed that this was an ardent, loving heart, 
full of chivalrous impulse, of passionate feel- 
ing ; a treasure which he was offering her — 
that this homely country doctor was as much 
her superior in every tender, feminine quality 
as in manly strength, and power, and vigor. 

She was looking at him intently with flush- 
ed cheeks. She saw a middle-sized, thick-set 
man, with a kind face, with what seemed to her 
trustworthy and keen eyes, instead of sleepy 
ones like her own, with a very sweet voice, 
whose tones she seemed to hear after he had 
ceased speaking. 



She pictured to herself his ivy-grown house- 
She had once driven jjast it with her cousin, 
Mrs. Dumbleton. She tried to imagine the 
daily round of life, the quiet little haven, the si- 
lence after all these years of noise and racket, 
the stillness after all this coming and going — 
one good friend instead of a hundred more or 
less indifferent. A man with every worldly ad- 
vantage would not have tempted her so greatly 
just at that moment. She thought to herself 
that she wished she had the courage to say 
"yes." 

When she found courage at last to speak at 
all, she said — not the "no" she imagined she 
was going to say — but, "I can't — I can't give 
you any answer now. I will send — I will write. 
I will talk to them. Please go, before they 
come in." 

So Dr. Rich made her a little graA-e bow, and 
walked away. His plebeian breeding stood hifn 
in good service. He was quite composed and 
quiet, and at his ease, and here she was trem- 
bling, and agitated, and scarcely able to control 
herself When he was gone she went up stairs, 
slowly crossing the hall, and passing along the 
gallery which led to her room. There was no- 
body else coming or going, there were only 
gathering shadows and shut oaken doors, and 
more Dumbletons hanging from the walls, and 
windows set with carved panels, looking out over 
the country and the tree-tops, and the sunset. 

She stopped and looked out. She saw the 
high-road gleaming white between the dark 
woods on either side ; she saw a horseman rid- 
ing away ; past the gate, and the haycock, and 
the little row .of cottages ; past the break in the 
trees, and then the road turned, and she could 
see him no longer. She looked out for some 
ten minutes, without much heeding all that was 
going on. Great purple clouds heaving out of 
the horizon, blending and breaking; winds ris- 
ing ; leaves fluttering in the evening breeze ; 
birds wheeling in the air, and rooks cawing from 
their nests ; the great Day removing in glory, 
and speeding in solemn state to other countries ; 
the Night arriving, with her pompous, shining 
train — ^all these great changes of dynasties and 
states of living did not affect her; only as she 
watched the sun disappear behind the trees, 
Horatia found, to her great surprise, that she 
had almost made up her mind — that what had 
seemed at first so impossible, and so little to be 
thought of; that what had appeared to her only 
a day ago unattainable, and far beyond her 
reach, was hers now, if she had but the resolu- 
tion to open her hand and to take it — to accept 
that tranquil existence, that calm happiness, 
which she had told herself a thousand thousand 
times was never to be hers. Suddenly the poor 
battered barque had drifted into a calm little 
haven : the ocean was roaring still ; the winds 
and the waves beating and tossing all about ; 
but here, sheltered, protected, safely anchored, 
she might stay if she would. And yes, she 
would stay. If she had scarcely the courage to 
remain, she had still less to face the ocean 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



a^ain. She would stay, come what might. ' 
Perhaps Horatia exaggerated to herself the past 
storms and troubles of her life, but it is certain j 
(and so she kept saying to herself) that at two- j 
and-thirty she was old enough to be her own 
mistress. She was not ungrateful to her aunt 
for years of kindness, but she could surely best 
judge for herself. And so, telling herself that 
she was not ungrateful, she began to wonder 
how she could send a note to the doctor ; how 
she could best break the dreadful news to Lady | 
Whiston, who was her aunt, to Mrs. Dumbleton, i 
who was her cousin, and Lady Whiston's daugh- j 
ter. It is a way that people have : they tell 
themselves that they are not ungrateful, and 
they go and do the very thing which does not 
prove their gratitude. 



11. 

The ladies came in very late, and went to 
their rooms at once to make ready for dinner. 
Horatia, who had dressed with nervous haste, 
and who was too much excited to be still, went 
wandering up and down the drawing-room in 
her white dinner-dress, trying to find words and 
courage to tell them of what had occurred. 

The housemaids came in to put the room to 
rights, to straighten cushions and chairs, to 
sweep the hearth, and make up the fire. The 
Dumbletons were chilly people, and fires burned 
on their hearth almost all the year round. The 
housemaids departed, leaving a cheerful blaze 
behind them, comfortable furniture in orderly 
array, lights with green shades, evening papers 
folded on the table. The place might have 
looked tranquil and homelike enough but for 
the restless Horatia pacing backward and for- 
ward. She hardly noticed JMr. Dumbleton, 
the master of the house, who came in quietly 
and sank down in a big chair, and watched her 
as she flitted to and fro. This constant coming \ 
and going worried him. He was a good-look- 
ing, kindly, slirewd, reserved young man. He 
was usually silent, but he would answer if he 
was spoken to. Sometimes he spoke of his 
own accord. 

To-night he spoke, and said, "What is the 
matter, Horatia ? What are you going into 
training for ?" and Horatia stopped suddenly, 
and turned round, and looked at him for a min- 
ute without speaking. An hour ago her mind 
had been made up, and now again she was hes- 
itating, shrinking, and thinking that she had 
almost rather change her mind than tell it, it 
seemed so terrible a task. But here was an 
opening. Henry Dumbleton was good-natured, 
perliaps he might help her; at all events, he 
would give her good advice. She stopped short 
in her walk, stood straight and still in her white 
dress, with a drooping head. "You can help 
me," she said, at last looking up ; "I am try- 
ing to decide for myself for once, and I do not 
know how to do it." 

" You surpi-ise me — and so you actually don't 



know your own mind ?" said Dumbleton, smil- 
ing. 

"Tell me," said Horatia suddenh', "would 
you think a woman foolish who — suppose you 
were a woman over thirty, Henry ?" — 

"I shouldn't own to it," says Mr. Dumble- 
ton. 

"Henry, listen to me," said Horatia. " Sup- 
pose the case of some one whose life is passing 
on, who has no settled home, who has not known 
for years and years the blessing and privilege of 
being mucli considered, or much loved. Don't 
think me heartless— aunt Car has been kindness 
itself — I shall always, always be grateful; 
but—" 

" All the gratitude in the world would not 
induce me to live with her, if that is what you 
mean," said Dumbleton. 

"Oh, Henry!" said Horatia,. coming and 
standing in front of him : " should you think 
very badly of me if, if — can ani/ tiling be a mesalli- 
ance for a woman in my position ?" The tears 
came into her eyes as she spoke, and Dumble- 
ton saw that her hands were trembling. I 
think it was for this foolish reason, as much as 
for any she could give him, that he determined 
to help her through the ordeal if he could. 

"Who is it ?" he asl;ed, a little alarmed as to 
what the answer might be. 

The answer came, and Horatia, blushing, and 
looking twenty again, said — " Dr. Rich." 

" So that is what he came for ?" says Henry, 
opening his eyes. 

" Don't you like him ?" implored Horatia. 

"I think Rich is a capital good fellow," 
said Dumbleton, hesitating. "I don't think 
he is doing a very wise thing. You will have 
to turn over a new leaf, Ratia, and tuck up 
your sleeves, and all that sort of thing ; but I 
suppose you are prepared?" 

"You do like him ?" said Horatia. "Oh, 
Henry, I think you are very, very kind ! I did 
not expect to find one single person to listen to 
me so patiently." And Horatia was, in truth, 
a little surprised that Henry did not insist more 
upon the inequality of the match. To her, 
brought up as she had been, in the semi-fash- 
ionable* world, the difference seemed greater 
than it re.illy was. She seemed to be perform- 
ing some heroic feat ; she had a sort of feeling 
that she was a princess stepping down from her 
throne ; that her resolution did her extraordi- 
nary credit ; that the favor she was conferring 
was immense ; that Dr. Rich's gratitude must 
be at least equal to her condescension. . . . 

And now I must confess that the doctor only 
spoke a truth when he had said that social dif- 
ferences did not greatly impress him. For Ho- 
ratia herself he had the tenderest regard and 
admiration ; for her position as the niece of a 
baroness, and the cousin of one or two Honora- 
blcs, he did not greatly care ; he might have 
thought more of it if he had been more in the 
world. As it was, the subject scarcely occurred 
to him. He was at that moment close at home, 
riding along a dark lane, hedged with black-look- 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



ing trees, with tlie stars coming out overhead in 
a sky swept by drifting clouds. The wind was 
rising and shaking the branches, but the doctor 
was absorbed as he rode along, and as he thought 
with tenderest aftection of the gracious and beau- 
tiful woman whom he had enshrined in the tem- 
ple of his honest heart. It was for herself that 
lie loved her, and not for her surroundings. He 
would have married her out of a hovel, if she 
had happened to be born tliere ; whereas she, I 
fear, took him more for what he had to give her 
than for what he was. She wanted to marry 
him, not because he was upright and tender 
and wise ; not because she could hope to make 
him happy and be a good wife to him — but be- 
cause she told herself he could make her happy. 
She was by way of giving up every thing for 
him, but in truth, if she gave any thing up, it 
was for her own sake, and because she was tired 
of it. 

Lady Whiston and her daughter came down 
as the dinner was announced. Mr. Dumbleton 
offered his arm to his mother-in-law, tlie other 
two followed across the hall. The dinner-table 
dazzled them for a moment with irs lights and 
shining silver and flowers, but their eyes soon 
became accustomed, and they sat down and 
took their places. Lady Whiston was a shriv- 
elled and rather flighty old lady ; Mrs. Dumble- 
ton, a kind little fat woman, who chirped and 
chattered and responded to her mother's con- 
stant flow of talk. Mr. Dumbleton, as usual, 
carved, and did not mix much in the conversa- 
tion. Horatia could hardly rouse herself to at- 
tend to what was going on. Why are people 
always expected to rouse themselves and to 
talk of the things they are not thinking about ? 

"I am quite worn out," Lady Whiston was 
saying. "Henry, you know how fin- from 
strong I am. I drove to town this morning. I 
was sliopping for two hours. 1 lunched at the 
De Beauvilles'. There I met Jane Beverley, 
who insisted upon taking me all over the South 
Kensington Museum, and from there to Maro- 
chetti's studio. We then went back to Cliapcl 
Street, and paid a number of visits. We got to 
Lady Ferrars's about half-past five, and had only 
time to drink a cup of tea. I found the car- 
riage with Augusta in it waiting at the door. 
Henry, you ought to get Lady Jane to come 
down and stay with you. There is no one like 
her." 

Mr. Dumbleton smiled rather grimly, and 
Mrs. Dumbleton hastily changed the conversa- 
tion, and said — 

" Well, dear Eatia, what have you been about 
all day ?'' 

Horatia looked at her plate, Mr. Dumbleton 
looked at Horatia. 

" Did Dr. Rich call again ?" said Lady Whis- 
ton. 

" Yes," Horatia said. 

" Those people are really unconscionable," 
cried the old lad}'. "Horatia, I hope you 
made him understand that we are going away, 
and all that, and shall not require his attend- 



ance any more. I don't know what he will 
not charge. He is not an M.D. though he calls 
himself a doctor. Now, Mr. Bonsey, a married 
man with a large family, never asked more than 
3s. (id. a visit. Those sort of people must be 
kept down." 

Horatia was blusliing pinker and pinker, 
Henry Dumbleton was more and more amused, 
and so the desultory conversation went on, all at 
cross purposes. There seemed to be some fatali- 
ty in the way in which doctors kept popping up 
with every course, and from under every dish- 
cover. Dr. Rich, and Mr. Caton his partner, 
went round with the entrees; with the roast 
Mr. Bonsey v^as served over again, and all the 
London physicians. And then, with the des- 
sert, arrived a series of horrible illnesses, which 
had attacked various ladies of high rank, symp- 
toms following each other in alarming succes- 
sion. Horatia heard nothing. She was sitting 
in a sort of dream, only she listened when they 
spoke of Dr. Rich. Was it indeed fated ? 
Was this new distant country awaiting her? 
Was she an alien already doomed to go away 
and leave them all, and live the unknown lite 
he had offered her? It seemed unreal and 
shadowy, like the night all round about. When 
the ladies got up from the table, Horatia fol- 
lowed. But Dumbleton got up, too, contrary 
to his usual custom, and said, "7 will tell my 
lady," in an undertone, as she passed him. 

So Horatia, with a beating heart, staid in the 
hall, and went and gazed out through the glass 
door at the black landscape, at the murky, 
wind-blown sky. It had been raining, but the 
clouds were breaking ; the crescent moon rose 
palely and faintly from behind the black trees, 
t!ie veils of vapor wreathed and curled in the 
sky, the wind blew in soft sudden gusts over the 
country, and across the grass and the fields. 
A lamp was burning, hanging from the pillars 
in the hall. It looked like a sort of temple, 
and Horatia in her white robes might have 
passed for a priestess, looking out at the heav- 
ens and trying to read her fate — her fate, which 
other people after all were settling and arrang- 
ing at their fiincy : for Lady Whiston, discom- 
posed, astonished, indignant, on the drawing- 
room sofa, was condemning her to live her pres- 
ent life to the very end of her days. Mr. Dum- 
bleton, in the arm-chair, was mildly but firmly 
marrying her to the doctor. Mrs. Dumbleton 
was sympathizing with her mother and husband 
alternately, and Horatia herself, who had most 
at stake, waiting outside, was watching the 
clouds and the moon. At last Mr. Dumbleton 
got up with a yawn, and sauntered out of tlie 
room. He came out into tlie hall with the 
lamp and the flowers and the white-robed lady 
staring out at the sky. She started as he 
called her. 

"I am going to send down to the station," he 
said. " The man can take a note if you like to 
put poor Rich out of suspense. There is a pen 
and ink in my room." He lit a cigar as he 
spoke, and went out and stood on the wet steps 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



309 



under the portico. And Horatia, doing as he 
told her, went into the study. It was all light- 
ed up, for Dumbleton often sat there of an even- 
ing. She sat down at his table, and slowly took 
up a pen, and then hid her face in her hands 
for a moment, and then wrote, hardly seeing the 
words as she formed them : — 

"You must help me to bear my aunt's dis- 
])leasure. I have determined to come to you — 
I know I can rely upon you. Horatia." 

She folded up the piece of paper and sealed 
it, and came out again, carrying it in her hand. 
Dumbleton, who was still waiting outside talk- 
ing to one of his grooms, took it without asking 
any questions. He merely nodded "Thank 
you," and gave it to the man, saying, " You can 
leave this at the doctor's on your way, and call 
and see if there is any answer coming back." 

And then Horatia knew that the die was cast, 
and with her own hand she had signed and seal- 
ed her fate. 



III. 

It is very puzzling to define the extraordi- 
nary difference, so small and yet so great, which 
exists between a number of people living in the 
same place, talking the same tongue, feeling the 
same emotions. There are, let us say, first, the 
great people, a number of whom make up what 
is called the great world. Then, people of the 
world ; then, people out of the world ; and, last- 
ly, the people — le ]>eiiple, properly speaking. 
Dr. Rich and his sister Roberta, and Mr. Caton, 
his partner, wei-e people out of the world, who 
had been very happy notwithstanding. Horatia 
was a small person of the world, who had been 
very unhappy in it, and yet who had learned 
unconsciously certain ways and habits there 
which made her unlike Roberta Rich, and supe- 
rior to her as far as mere outward manner was 
concerned. As for the doctor, he was forty 
years old and more. He had been a surgeon 
on board ship, he had been to India and back, 
he had knocked about for fifteen years, he had 
been at death's door once or twice (the last time 
was when he nearly died of small-pox, before 
Roberta came to live witli him — some one, to 
whom she was not as grateful as she might 
have been, had nursed him through it all). If 
years and experience ; if rubbing up against peo- 
ple of every degree, from savages without any 
clothes at all, to lords and ladies in silken gear ; 
if a good heart, if good wit, and good education, 
do not make a gentleman after two-score years, 
it is hard to say what will. Poor Mr. Caton 
had not enjoyed all these advantages — only the 
good heart was his. That very morning the 
doctor and his sister had had a little discussion 
out in the garden about the young surgeon's 
merits. Roberta liked him and she didn't like 
him ; she almost loved him when he was sad, 
silent, subdued; she almost hated him if, find- 
ing her perchance more kind, he became gay. 



confident, talkative, and funny. Even George 
owned sometimes it was a pity that Caton had 
so noisy a scorn for social observance. 

If Berta had declared that she fancied him, 
very likely her brother might have regretted 
her fancy, and thought she was throwing herself 
away ; as she seemed to care little for him — 
shook her head, laughed, blushed, would have 
nothing to say when she saw him — George, out 
of some strange contradiction, had all the more 
sympathy for Caton because his sister showed 
so little ; asked him to the house, praised him 
continually, and told Berta at last that she was 
fine and foolish not to be able to appreciate a 
kind and honorable man when he came in her 
way. 

"I may be foolish, George ; you know I am 
not fine — I hate fine ladies," said Berta, with 
whom it was a sore subject. 

They had just done breakfast on the morning 
of this eventful day, the doctor had come out 
for a stroll with The Times and his cigar, Berta 
walked beside him with a basketful of roses. 
The garden was on a slope — a long, narrow, and 
somewhat neglected strip, with grass, with rose- 
beds, with elm-trees, with all London and its 
domes and spires for a background. There 
lay the city in the valley stretching farther and 
farther away beyond the morning mist. Long 
lines of railway viaducts and arches, lonely 
church towers, domiciles nestling amidst trees, 
chinking workshops, fields, roads, and gardens, 
children's voices shouting, cattle lowing, sheep, 
and the sound of cocks and hens — all this life 
lay between the doctor's quiet garden and the 
great misty city. A great silent city it seemed 
to be as it glistened in the gentle morning rays ; 
for its roar could scarcely reach the two stand- 
ing on their distant hill-top. Every now and 
then came the shrill whistle of a train dashing 
across the landscape and gone in a moment, 
only a little smoke remained curling, drifting, 
breaking, shining with sunlight, vanishing away. 
All the late summer roses were smelling sweet 
and were heavy with drops of dew, all the birds 
in the trees were chirping and fluttering, and 
Berta, in her pink cotton dress, fresh, slim, and 
and smiling, looked up into her brother's face 
and said — 

"You know I am not fine — I hate fine la- 
dies." 

Dr. George winced, and puflfed his cigar. 

"Thej' have never done you any harm. 
"Why should you hate people j^ou know nothing 
about ?" said her brother. 

Roberta looked up a little surprised, a little 
hurt ; she could not understand how it was pos- 
sible that George should speak in such a tone. 
"They have never done me any real harm," 
she said, in a voice not quite Rer own. " They 
have made me feel very uncomfortable." 

" Nonsense, my dear Berta," said George, 
hastily turning away; "that was your fault, 
not theirs. I can't talk to you now ; order a 
good dinner, at all events, for poor Caton is 
coming, and don't starve him and snub him too." 



310 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



And he walked across the lawn, at the rUiss 
door, and Berta heard the liall-door shut with a 
bang as he rode off to his fate. 

Roberta was a born housewife, a domestic 
woman — she was gentle and deliberate — she was 
placid and happy — she was contented with small 
interests. A calm summer's evening, a kind 
word from George, a novel sometimes, a friend 
to talk to, an occasional jaunt to London — these 
were her chiefest pleasures. Her troubles lay in 
her store-room, her kitchen, in the meshes of 
lier needlework, in the cottages of the poor peo- 
ple round about, and now and then, it must be 
confessed, in occasional and frightful ordeals 
gone through at her brother's desire, when she 
called at Dumbleton House, and such like 
ogres' castles, once in six months. Berta's 
thoughts were all of objects, of things almost al- 
ways the most pleasant and the most simple. 
She had no mental experience in particular : 
crises of morbid dissatisfaction were undreamt 
of by her ; hankerings after what she could not 
get, aspirations after other duties than the sim- 
ple one which fell to her share, passionate self- 
reproach and abasement, fervent resolutions, 
presently to be forgotten — all these things were 
unknown, unrealized, unimagined by the girl as 
she came and went about her little busy domain, 
while Horatia was fuming, fussing, railing at 
herself and her cruel fate elsewhere. 

Berta was not clever. She had not half Miss 
Berners's powers ; she performed her simple du- 
ties simply, and without an effort. Horatia did 
not always do her duty, but sometimes she went 
through prodigies of self-reproach, control, de- 
nial, culture, inspection, condemnation, or what- 
ever it might happen to be. 

Roberta's life was a tranquil progress from one 
day to another. Her steps paced across the 
grass-plot, tarried at every rose-tree in turn, led 
her along the walks to her favorite seat in the 
arbor, into the house again, moving from one 
room to another, arranging, straightening, or- 
dering. 

And so at six o'clock Berta had put out some 
of her roses upon the dinner-table, di-essed her- 
self in her muslin dress, looked into the kitchen 
to see that all was satisfactory. At five minutes 
past six Mr. Caton arrived, and found Berta 
sitting in the window at work. 

As the time went by they both began to think 
that George would never come back. Caton 
did not like to say what was in his mind when 
she told him that the doctor was at Dumbleton 
House, she was so perfectly unconscious. What 
was the use of setting her against the inevitable 
fate? Her brother could best tell her if any 
thing was to be told. 

Only that morning, with the strange knowl- 
edge of another person's feelings which we all 
possess, Caton had known more than Berta, or 
Dr. Rich, or Horatia ; but meanwhile the day 
had sped on its course, causes had produced ef- 
fects, one destiny had evolved out of another, 
the world rolled into the appointed space in the 
firmament, and, after ceaselessly travelling hith- 



er and thither upon its face for forty years and 
more. Dr. Ricli rode up that afternoon as usual 
to the door of Dumbleton House, came up the 
sweep along which the lilacs were beginning to 
scatter their leaves, and asked if Miss Berners 
was at home ? . . . . 

When the tramp of a horse's hoofs came, some 
two hours later, thudding along the quiet glim- 
mering lane which led back to tlie doctor's own 
house, the doctor's sister, who had grown very 
weary of a long tete-h-tcte, ran out to the door to 
meet her brother, and Mr. Caton followed more 
leisurely. As George dismounted, agitated, 
wearied, excited, the kindly welcome seemed 
inexpressibly soothing and pleasant. 

For home opened its wide door to him, he 
thought, and seemed to say, " Come in ; here you 
have a right to enter, a right to be loved ; what- 
ever befalls you without, come in ; forget your 
anxiety, your suspense, put awaj' your fears for 
to-night. Welcome, welcome !" Home said all 
this as Berta kissed him, and Caton his partner 
cried — 

"I say, George Rich, you ask me to dinner 
at six, and it is near eight before you come in." 

"I — I couldn't come; I was detained," said 
Dr. Rich ; "order dinner, Berta." 

And in a few minutes they also were sitting 
down to dinner, at a table with roses, with can- 
dles, and over-roasted mutton ; with Betty in 
desultory attendance: it was a silent repast, 
chill, belated, and yet pleasant and friendly 
enough. 

After the sun had set, as I have said, the 
purple clouds turned to gray, and to black, and 
the wreathing mist began to fall down in occa- 
sional showers pattering against tiie window. 
Berta could not go out into the garden for her 
evening stroll, and she had to return into the 
darkling little sitting-room after dinner, while 
the gentlemen sat over their wine. 

She got out one of her long seams to sew, and 
as she stitclied she faintly wondered what was to 
be the end of these silent tete-h-tctes and long 
seams. She heard the voices rising and mum- 
bling in the dining-room ; she could distinguish 
George's soft tones from Caton's harsh treble ; 
she asked herself whether it was possible that 
she could one day like the harsh voice as well as 
she loved the other ; she broke her thread, and 
stitched — no, never, never ; nobody could be to 
her what her brother was — wliom else did she 
want ? she would live for him always. 

And now while Berta is still sewing at her 
seam some one passes the window through the 
rain ; tliere is a ring at the bell, a brief collo- 
quy, and Betty comes in with a letter which 
she puts upon the table. Berta, busy specula- 
ting, wondering to find herself so silly — she al- 
ways counted silliness and sentiment together — 
with an effort turns her well-regulated little 
mind from a dim involuntary mystic dream, and 
wakes up to every day. 

It was time to make the tea, to fold up her 
work. Should she be able to find her way in 
the dark to the cupboard upon the landing? 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 311 

Poor little Roberta, she did not gaess what was ^ ble. The rain had ceased by this time, and, as 
at hand, and in whdt manner she would find her ' the clouds broke, a faint pale moonlight came 



way there. For she looked up with a smile 
when the door opened, and George and Caton 
came in. 

Caton glanced at the table and the letter Ij- 
ing there, and then walked across and sat down 
beside Berta, and began to tell her that he and 
her brother had been having a discussion ; and 
meanwhile George took up the letter, a candle, 
and walked away out of the room. 

About five minutes passed, and then Berta 
heard his voice calling — " Roberta !" She ran 
out to him. 

He was standing in the study, with the letter 
still in his hand ; he looked bright, round-eyed, 
strange, nnliko himself. "Berta," he said, 
"something has made me very happy," and he 
put out his hand. 

She looked up, with her sweet anxious face 
wondering, as she took it. " Some one has 
promised to be your sister, whom you must love 
for my sake," he went on, smiling. He did not 
see that Berta was trembling and quaking, as 
she gasped, " Who is it, George ?" 

"You know her, dear. You have seen her 
at Mrs. Dumbleton's," the doctor went on. 
" You must love her, and help me to make her 
happy." 

Berta's grasp loosened, and her heart sank 
with dismay. She had seen a beautiful fash- 
ionable lady at Mrs. Dumbleton's, who had 



creeping coldly along the passage. 



IV. 

While Berta was crying in the cupboard, 
Horatia was sitting with her cousin, Mrs. Dum- 
bleton, and saying, "Augusta, you must stand 
by me and help me. I assure you I shall be 
happy. You know I have always wished for a 
quiet country life, and hoped to marry a clergy- 
man." 

" But you have not always wished to marry 
a country doctor," said Mrs. Dumbleton. 

" He will do quite as well," said Horatia, 
eagerly. " I shall occupy myself with the poor 
people, with tlie schools. I shall escape from the 
hateful monotonous round of dismal gayety." 

"But this will be still more dull in a little 
while," said Mrs. Dumbleton. 

"No," said Miss Berners, decisively; "be- 
cause it is a natural and wholesome existence : 
the other is unnatural, and morbid, and exhaust- 
ing. Augusta, you must help me, and persuade 
aunt Car to forgive me. For it is too late to 
prevent it any more, and — and — Henry sent off 
a note when the groom went to the station." 

"Is. it all settled?" cried Mrs. Dumbleton, 
very much relieved. She was always delighted 
when people decided things without her. "Then, 
of course, mamma must forgive you;" and the 



made her feel all elbows when she talked to , good-natured little woman went off, and knock- 



her ; a fine lady — did not she hate fine ladies ? 
— a terrible alarming London beauty. What 
had he done — what foolish thing had he done ? 
She was clinging to her brother again, with her 
arms round his neck. 

" Oh, how I hope you will be happy ! oh, how 
I hope she will make you happy ! Why didn't 
you tell me? Why have you never said a 
word ?" 

" I only made up my mind and spoke to her 
this afternoon," said her brother, pulling her 
gently away. "I have only had her answer 
this moment." 

Berta looked at him once again, with her fond 
doubting eyes. She felt somehow as if it was 
the last time, and as if Horatia's husband would 
not be the same man as her brother George. 
And then she went gently out of the room, still 
carrying her work, for she felt that tears were 
coming into her eyes, and she did not want him 
to see them. She turned and went up stairs, 
and tlien, walking along the familiar dark pas- 
sage, she felt for the ke}', and opened the great 
cupboard door, and put down her work upon the 
shelf with the lavender. Only as she did so. 



ed at Lady Winston's door, and tliere was a 
great long long conference, and at last Horatia 
was summoned. And when she came out she 
was pale and exhausted, but triumphant. She 
and Mrs. Dumbleton had talked over the old 
lady between them. " Of course, you are go- 
ing to do exactly as you like," says Lady Whis- 
ton, "but I suppose you know you have for- 
feited your place in society. I shall come and 
see you now and then, when I am not too busy. 
My consent is all nonsense, I must say I had 
hoped differently." 

"But you will forgive her in time, mamma ?" 
pleaded Augusta. 

" I can not discharge Mr. Bonsey, if that is 
what she wants. Horatia! what could you 
want when you made this ridiculous arrange- 
ment ?" 

" Good-night,dearest, kindest aunt Car," said 
Horatia, suddenly clasping the little old woman 
in her arms. " I can't tell you what I wanted, 
but I must keep to my decision. Good-night, 
Augusta." 

What had she desired? Happiness, rest, 
quiet, a tranquil home, sympathy : and now all 



suddenly a great sorrowful pang came over her, ! this was hers at last. She caught a glimpse of 
and, with a choking sob, she laid her head upon j her glowing cheeks in the glass. She could 
the shelf, feeling all alone in the dark, with her j hardly believe that bright and brilliant face was 
bitter bitter grief. She had not thought, as j her own — her own old f;ice, whose wan glances 
she sat below sewing her seam, in what a sad , had met her for so many years. . . . 
fashion it was fated she should put it away. 

After this night, Roberta could never smell I One day, not long after the day I have been 
lavender without thinking of darkness and trou- I describing, Mrs. Dumbleton's little carriage was 



312 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



travelling along the road which leads from Dum- 
bleton to Wandsworth ; Augusta was driving 
the ponies, and Horatia was going in state to 
visit her new dominions. They roll on across 
the country roads, and lanes, and commons ; 
through the western sunshine, through the warm 
sweet September air, with a great dazzling vault 
overhead, a shining world all round about them. 
Horatia leans back too languid, too happy, too 
excited to talk. She lazily watches the crisp 
shadows that advance alongside— the nodding 
heads of the ponies, the trees and houses in the 
distance, the children and wayfarers who look 
up to see them pass. It is like a fairy-tale, 
Horatia thinks— a princess driving along the 
road. And what will be the end of the story ? 
They come to a cross-road at last, and then Au- 
gusta turns the ponies' heads, and they trot up 
a lane full of flickering shadow and sunshine. 
They stop suddenly at an ir n gate in front of a 
Queen Anne brick house, with all the windows 
open, and growing ivj'-wreaths. And Horatia, 
with a start, says to herself, " So this is my 
home?" while Augusta points and says, " Here 
we are ; doesn't it look nice ?" 

Behind the iron gate is a little garden, full of 
red and blue, margarites and geraniums; then 
three worn steps lead to the door with the old- 
fashioned cornice, over which a rose-tree is nail- 
ed. When Betty opened the door, they could 
see into the passage, and into the garden be- 
yond, green and sunlight there as here in the 
lane. 

Dr. Eich was not at home ; Miss Rich was in 
the garden : Betty proposed to go and tell her ; 
but Horatia quickly said, " No, we will go to 
her." 

So the ladies got down. As Horatia crossed 
the threshold,she suddenly thought, with a thrill, 
how this was her new life, her future into which 
she was stepping. It had all lain concealed be- 
hind the door but a moment ago, and now it was 
revealed to her. It had begun from that min- 
ute when Betty admitted the strangers. The 
ladies swept through the little hall in their silk 
gowns, glanced with interest at the doctor's hats 
lianging upon their hooks, peeped into the little 
sitting-rooms on either side: the drawing-room 
with the horsehair sofa and mahogany chairs, 
the cottage piano, the worsted works of art, the 
three choristers hanging up on the wall, the fun- 
ny old china cups and bowls on the chimney, 
the check tablecloth, some flowers in a vulgar 
liti'e vase on the table, a folding-door half open 
into an inner room. 

"Is that another drawing-room?" Horatia 
asked. 

"It ain't used much," says Betty. " It 'ave 
been Miss Rich's play-room. She does the lining 
there now, and keeps the preserves and gro- 
ceries." 

Horatia peeped in. There was no carpet ; 
there was a wooden press, there was a glass door 
leading into the garden. It was not much of a 
place ; but she thought how she would have 
cliintz curtains, tripod tables, gilt gimcracks; 



and how pretty she could make it ! Mrs. Dum- 
bleton was quite enthusiastic. 

"These are very nice rooms, Horatia, all 
except the furniture ; with a few alterations they 
might be made quite pretty." 

But she was so used to her own trim lawns 
and hothouses tliat she could find no praise for 
the garden. However, there was all Fulham 
beyond for her to expatiate on. "The view is 
too lovely," said Augusta ; " it would be too, too 
beautiful, if you could only help looking at the 
railways and the houses. ... I should advise 
you to build a high wall, Ratia." 

"It will do very well when the garden is put 
in order," said Horatia, drawing a deep breath. 

" It is a pity the garden is so neglected," Au- 
gusta went on, looking up and down, and round 
about. Cabbages and roses were growing in 
friendly confusion, honeysuckle straggled up the 
old brick walls ; parsley, mint, saffron, herbs of 
every sort, grew along the beds, Joe, the odd 
man, kept it in a certain trim ; and the doctor 
sometimes ordered in a barrowful of flowers. 
It was not much of a place. Three straight 
walks led up to the low ivy wall at the end, 
where a little arbor had been put up, and where 
the ivy, and spiders'-webs, and honeysuckle, and 
various pretty creeping plants, tangled, and 
sprouted, and hung luxuriantly, as you see them 
at the end of a long summer. The entertain- 
ment is nearly over, and they lavishly fling out 
all their treasures, their garlands, their sweet- 
ness. 

Under this pleasant, triumphal, autumnal 
arch, Berta, in a broad hat and blue ribbons, 
was sitting with a novel ; and looking up as she 
heard steps, she saw a tall woman coming to- 
wards her with a long silk trailing gown which 
swept the mint and parsley borders ; and then 
she guessed in a moment that this was the future 
mistress of the little domain. What a beauti- 
ful lady ! the heroine of the novel she had just 
been reading was not to be compared to her. 
What dark eyes! what bright glowing cheeks! 
What a charming smile ! 

Roberta, who had only seen her once before 
and who had thought her very alarming, and 
said to herself that she hated fine ladies, was 
vanquished utterly for a moment. No wonder 
George was in love with this gracious creature, 
who was ready to give up all her state for him. 
She jumped up to meet her. 

"I have come to see my new home," said 
Horatia, holding out her hand in a royal sort 
of way. • 

And Berta, blushing, took it timidl}', and 
said — 

"George told me. How I hope you will 
both be happy. Isn't it a dear old house?" 

The old cistern at the back, the familiar 
chimney-stacks, the odd windows, the water- 
spout with the bird's nest, the worn steps where 
she had played when she was a child, the mouldy 
little arbor, had all dear old charms for Roberta, 
which naturally enough Horatia could not ap- 
preciate. 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



313 



" I am afraid it is more for the sake of your 
brother, than for the merits of the house, that I 
mean to come and live here," said Horatia, 
smiling. "£ want you to show me over the 
liouse, and to give us some tea. We came on 
purpose, when we thought he would be out. I 
think you know Mrs. Dumbleton." 

" We peeped into your store-room as we 
came along," said Mrs. Dumbleton, shaking 
hands, "and we want to see some more. I 
see you do not care much for your garden." 

" I am so glad to have found you," continued 
Iloratia ; " but we meant to come, anyhow." 

■Roberta was rather bewildered by all this 
conversation, but most of all by the demand for 
tea. Betty was apt to be ill-tempered if any 
thing was expected that did not come naturally 
in the course of every twenty-four hours. She 
began to feel as if her future sister-in-law was 
a fine lady again. Her heart sank within her. 
What had George done ? What foolish thing 
had he done ? However, she put the doubt 
away, and said, smiling, that she would be de- 
lighted to show them every thing. There was 
not much to see. She pointed out St. Paul's, 
and the Abbey, and the Tower, and the new 
railway bridge close at hand ; and then tripped 
back into the house before them, opened doors, 
showed them the surgery, the study, the draw- 
ing-room over again, the dining-room (there 
were some old carved chairs in the dining-room 
the ladies were pleased to approve of) ; she 
pointed out the convenient cupboards, but she 
felt a little awkward and sad as she led them 
Iiere and there ; she could not help feeling that 
their praises and dispraises were alike distaste- 
ful to her. 

"What an old-fashioned paper!" said Mrs. 
Dumbleton. "Horatia, you ought to have white 
and gold, and matting on the floor, with Persian 
rugs. Yes ; and we must do up this room." 

"What a funny, dismal little room," said 
Horatia, stepping in, and indeed almost entirely 
filling it with her voluminous skirts. 

They had turned poor Roberta's store-room 
into a boudoir; they had built a bow-window, 
they had sacriliced all the dear old chairs and 
tables, and now this was George's study that 
they were invading. It was very hard to bear. 
Berta only came in on great occasions — when she 
wanted money, when she said good-bye, and 
when she dusted his books. It seemed almost 
sacred to her, and Betty the clumsy was never 
allowed to dust or to touch George's possessions. 
There was a little inner closet with a window, 
where her brother used to let her sit when she 
was a child, as a great great treat, while he was 
at work. In the looking-glass over the chim- 
ney,' she had, in former years, standing on tip. 
toe, looked at herself with a sort of guilty feel- 
ing of profanation ; and now, instead of Roberta's 
demure, respectful peeping face, it reflected two 
flounced ladies poking about, staring at the 
sliabby old furniture, turning over the books, 
talking and laughing. 

" What a bachelor's house it is !" said Hora- 



tia to Berta, without a notion of the wounds she 
and good-natured little Mrs. Dumbleton, who 
would not willfully have pained any living crea- 
ture, were inflicting ; but women of thirty and 
upwards have a knack of snubbing and ruffling 
very young girls, and Berta was very young for 
twenty summers. She slipped away to the 
kitchen to order the tea, and to recover her 
temper. 

•"Please, Betty, put it out in the dining-room ; 
Dr. Rich would particularly wish it if he were at 
home," Berta said. 

" Well, this is the fust time /ever heard of 
tea before dinner!" says Betty, with a bang of 
the tray upon the table ; and Berta fled at the 
sound, and came back to find her guests up stairs 
on the bed-room landing, opening doors, and 
talking and laughing still. 

" That is my brother s i-oom — that is the spare 
room," Berta said. 

" This one would make a nice boudoir," chirp- 
ed Mrs. Dumbleton, thoughtlessly, looking into 
a pleasant chamber full of western sun-rays, 
with a window full of flowei-s. 

"That is my room," said Berta, shortly, 
blushing up; "it has always been mine ever 
since I came to live with George." 

"How pretty you have made it," said Hora- 
tia, who saw that she was vexed. "Shall we 
go down again ?" 

Berta made way for them to pass, and they 
sallied down into the drawing-room again. 

But no tea was to be seen ; so, at Berta's re- 
quest, they went across the passage once more 
into the dining-room, and sure enough there it 
was. Betty had not vouchsafed a cloth, but 
had put out three cups on the red table-cover, 
three veiy small old-fashioned willow-patterned 
plates, knives and forks, a dish of thick bread 
and scraped butter, a plate of hard biscuits, a 
teapot, and a glass milk-jug. Three chairs were 
set, at which they took their places ; and while 
Berta was busy pouring out the tea, Betty ar- 
rived with a huge black kitchen kettle to fill up 
the pot. 

" Shall you want any more bread and butter 
cut, Miss Roberta?" she said; and poor Berta 
could not help seeing that Mrs. Dumbleton and 
Horatia glanced ateach other somewhatamused. 
They did not hear Berta's sigh as she sent Betty 
away. Berta sighed indeed, but then she forced 
herself to smile ; and when George Rich rode up, 
a minute or two later, he came in to find a dream 
of old days realized at last — a little happy fami- 
ly group in the old house, a beautiful woman 
looking up with bright gladness to greet him ; 
Berta, evidently happy too, already ado]>ted as 
a sister. He had not thought as he came slow- 
ly along the lane that it was to this that he was 
coming. He was touched to be able at last to 
welcome Horatia under his roof; and as he 
glanced at her beautiful face, as he realized the 
charm of her refinement, her soft breeding, he 
asked himself more than once if that was indeed 
his wife ? His welcome was charming, his ten- 
der kindness melted and delighted Horatia, who 



314 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



had not experienced overmuch in her life. She 
was grateful, gentle, and happy, and cordial. 
When they drove off, tlie doctor was standing 
at the gate, as happy and as certain of coming 
happiness as she was herself. 

I wonder would it have been different if Dr. 
Eich could have known that evening what was 
to come as days went by ? It was yet time. If 
he could have been told the story of the next 
two years, would he have hesitated — have heid 
back ? I think not. He was a man so hrave 
and so incautious that I imagine he would not 
have heeded the warning. I am sure he could 
have borne to know the end of it all — and could 
have heard of trouble to come, with that same 
courage with which he endured it when it fell 
upon him. 



HoRATi A had determined to marry her husband 
against all warnings : except Mr. and Mrs. Dum- 1 
bleton there was no one in favor of the match. 
But she would not listen to any objections. 
Her aunt's laments, angry retractions, exclama- 
tions of horror, shakes of the head, nods, groans, 
sighs, grand and agitated relations who drove '^ 
up from town to put a stop to the match, and j 
to crush the presumptuous doctor under their 
horses' hoofs, if need be — nothing could prevent , 
her from doing as she liked. I 

" I am beginning to see that this is not at all 
a good match for you," the doctor said one day. j 
" Horatia, do you understand that you will have 
to be really a woman of the working classes? 
You will have to do as Berta does — for instance, 
sew and stitch, and make a pudding on occa- 
sions, and I don't know what else." • 

" I am older than Berta, and have been 
brought up differently," said Horatia, smiling. 
"I assure you it is a popular fallacy to think 
that households do not go on very well with a 
little judicious supervision. The mistress is not 
necessarily always in and out of the kitchen. — 
Where are you going to?" — she went on, glad 
to change the subject, which was one she hated. 

' ' I am going to see a very sick man, who lives 
three miles off. Caton is attending him, and 
he has sent for me." 

"I do not much fancy that Mr. Caton," said 
Horatia. "I wish you would beg your friends 
not to congratulate me without knowing me." 

" Caton is a very good young fellow — he is a 
rough diamond," said the doctor. "He saved 
my life once when I had the small-pox, so you 
must forgive him for that and other reasons, 
Horatia." And he nodded, and went away 
more in love than ever. 

When Mr. Caton, whom he met presently, 
began talking over the marriage, with as many 
misgivings as the grandest of Horatia's great 
aunts, George Ilich stopped liim almost angrily. 

"What do you mean about keeping in one's 
own class of life ? I suppose a gentleman is 
the equal of any lady ; and if she does not ob- 
ject to marry me, I can not see what concern it 



is of yours. Men or women are none the worse 
in any station of life for a good education, and 
for having some idea of what is happening out 
of one particular narrow sphere." 

"Look at your sister," began Mr. Caton. 

" My sister will be all the better for learning 
a little more of the world," said Dr. Rich ; "she 
is too fond of housekeeping." But he kne\v 
very well what Mr. Caton thought of Roberta. 

Six weeks went by — very happily for George 
and Horatia, very slowly for poor Berta, who all 
the while fought a heroic little battle which 
nobody suspected : she was fighting with her- 
self, poor child ! and got all the blows. 

Andrew Caton, indeed, may have guessed that 
slie was not happy ; and one day he came up to 
condole with her, but he had put on such a very 
long sympathetic face for the occasion that Berta 
burst out laughing, and would not say a word 
on the subject. Much less would she under- 
stand when he tried to speak of what was much 
nearer his heart. The little maiden gently par- 
ried and avoided all sentiment. At the very 
bottom of /te?- heart I think she liked him, and 
meant. some day to make him happy; but at 
twenty life is long, the horizon stretches away 
far, far into the distance. There is plenty of 
time to love, to live, to hate, to come, to go. 
Older peojile are more impatient, and hurry 
things on. Young folks don't mind waiting; 
at least, so it has seemed to me. Roberta did 
not mind much, only sometimes, when a sort 
of jealous loneliness came wearily weighing upon 
her. She could not help feeling that she was 
changed somehow, that life was not the placid 
progress she had always imagined ; wishes, ter- 
rors, fancies, were crowding round her more and 
more thickly every day. She began to see what 
was going on all about her, to understand what 
was passing in other people's minds, as she had 
never done in her life before. 

As the day approached which was settled for 
George's marriage, Berta become more sad. 
Her wistful eyes constantly crossed his, she took 
to following him about ; she would come out to 
meet him on his return, and creep gently into 
his room when he was smoking, or at work. 
The night before his marriage she whispered a 
little sobbing blessing in his ear. 

"My dearest Berta," he said, "let us pray 
that we may all be happy — don't cry, you silly 
child — you do not think that any one or any 
thing can ever change my love for you." 

George was not demonstrative ; he had never 
said so much before, and Berta slept sounder 
than she had slept for weeks. 

Dr. Rich and Miss Eerners were married at 
Putney Church early one wintry morning. Mr. 
and Mrs. Dumbleton went to the wedding, and 
Roberta, in a pretty white bonnet. Tiiere was 
scarcely any one else. After it was all over, 
Roberta walked home, packed up her things, and 
went back by the train to the country village 
where her stepfather was vicar, and where her 
mother, who was not George's mother, but his 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



315 



late father's wife, was busy from morning to 
night with little boys and girls at home and 
abroad; with soup-kitchens, training-schools; 
with a very tiresome, fidgety second husband, 
who could do nothing himself, but was very par- 
ticular about every body else's doings. He loved 
his own children, but was not over fond of his 
stepdaughter; and I think that is why Mrs. 
Baron was glad that Berta, her dearest and fa- 
vorite child, should be almost constantly away.* 
But, all the same, it was a delight to have her 
at home, and Roberta came to the garden-gate 
to be clasped in kind motherly ai"ms, while all 
the stepbrothers and sisters streamed out in a 
little procession to welcome her. It was Christ- 
mas holiday time — the boys were at home. Ri- 
carda (Mrs. Baron had a fancy for inventing 
names) was grown up quite a young woman ; 
Tina bad broken her front tooth ; Stejihana was 
naughty, but she should come down from her 
room after tea; Will, and Nick, and Harry, 
were hovering about, long-legged, kindly, and 
glad. It seemed impossible to Berta that she 
was only an hour or two away from the struggle 
of love and jealousy, of tenderness and anxiety, 
she had been going through for the last few 
weeks — only two hours distant from the last 
tears she had dropped, as with Betty's assistance 
she packed up her boxes and came away ; only 
an liour away from George's last kind words 
and thoughtful care. And so she settled down 
quietly in this other home. 

She cut out frocks for the children, set to 
work at the choir, and for three whole days she 
and her sisters were busy dressing up the old 
church with ivy, and holly, and red berries. 

Months went by. She heard from George ; 
she had one or two letters from Horatia, in the 
beautiful handwriting. They were back long 
ago, and settled down quite comfortably, Darby 
and Joan-wise. They hoped she would come 
soon, and stay as long as ever she liked one day. 
George added, "Caton says he would like to 
come down and pay you a visit. I dare say 
you may see him before long." Poor Mrs. 
Baron was very much excited, but also rather 
alarmed by this piece of intelligence. She did 
not know liow her husband might take this at- 
tention of the young doctor's. I think, as a 
rule, women are more hospitable than men, and 
more glad to see their friends at more hours of 
the day, but I must confess that it was not only 
hospitality which made her so anxious on this 
occasion to play hostess. Mr. Caton was ten 
years younger than George, was very well to do, 
and certainly was not coming all this way to see 
her and the ungracious vicar only. She was 
right. When Mr. Caton arrived, he asked for 
Berta eagerly, and Berta appeared. But so un- 
willing, so little glad to see him, so silent, so 
anxious to get out of his way, that he deter- 
mined to go back again without saying any thing 
of what he had meant to say, and had come all 
this long way to tell her. 

" How is George getting on ?" Mrs. Baron 
asked, by way of making some sort of talk. 



Mr. Caton shrugged his broad shoulders. ' ' I 
hardly ever go there now. Mrs. Rich gives her- 
self no end of airs, but I can not drop him alto- 
gether ; he looks ill enough, poor fellow, and I 
think he begins already to repent of his bargain." 

" These unsuitable marriages rarely answer," 
said Mrs. Baron, with a sigh. 

" That is just Avhat he was so angry with me 
for saying," said the young man. " / like a 
v/onian who is not above her station, who minds 
her house, and takes care of her husband, and 
that is what Mrs. R. doesn't do. Wliy, it was 
as different in Miss Berta's time. . . . Now, the 
house is all topsy-turvy. She's got a lady's maid, 
they tell me, but the dinner is disgraceful. I 
assure you, I am not particular — you know I'm 
not. Miss Berta — but I couldn't eat what was on 
my plate. I give you my honor I couldn't." 

Berta hoped that this might be a prejudiced 
report, but she could not help feeling sad and 
anxious as the time came near for her to go 
back to them again. 

Alas ! the prejudiced report happened to be 
the true one. 

If Horatia had married younger it might have 
been different, but it is almost impossible sud- 
denly, in middle life, to become a new woman 
altogether ; and from being lazy, nervous, lan- 
guid, and unhandy, suddenly to grow brisk, or- 
derly, thoughtful, and hard-working. 

Berta paid them one very short visit, during 
which all went smoothly, and yet she went home 
for another six months, very doubtful as to how 
things might turn. Her brother was not repent- 
ing, as Mr. Caton had told them, but it seemed 
to her that Horatia might begin to get tired of 
this new life, as she had wearied of the old one. 

When George and Horatia married, they both 
pictured to themselves the lives they were going 
to lead ; and the two pictures were not in the 
least like one another, or like the reality even. 
George's picture was of Horatia, a happy woman, 
a good wife, beautiful, sympathetic, interested in 
his schemes, contented with her destiny, cheer- 
ful, and devoted. He saw "her busy in a thou- 
sand ways, working among the poor with more 
energy than Roberta had ever shown, understand- 
ing his plans far better, better able to advise, 
helping him, encouraging him in all good, the 
best friend, the most faithful companion. 
." These instincts are unfailing," he said to him- 
self; "Iknowheras well as I know myself; by 
what strange, happy intuition is one led to these 
discoveries ?" 

Horatia's picture was also of herself. Ele- 
gantly but simply dressed, gracefully entertain- 
ing her relations, leading a sort of Petit Trianon 
existence. Giving delicious but inexpensive 
little dinners, with croquet on tlie lawn, per- 
haps ; afterwai'ds returning among her old com- 
panions ; gracious, unpresuming, independent, 
much made of; she was, especially at first, 
well satisfied with herself and with what she 
had done, and with her husband. He might be 
a little rough and abrupt, but thatfihe should be 
able to change. He was kind and clever and 



316 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



full of consideration; and, with her connec- 
tions, it would indeed be strange if he did not 
get on, and become — who knows ? — a prosper- 
ous man in time. Then, of course, he would 
have to make some radical change in his way 
of life. I do not know when it began, but by 
degrees she began to think the calm haven was 
perhaj)S a little too calm after all — if it was to 
continue only broken by the vagaries of Betty 
and the cook. Horatia had now and then lost 
all patience with them, as well as with other 
peculiarities of her husband's house. She de- 
tested a racket, but she was not accustomed to 
this utter seclusion, or, what was even worse, 
tliis strange company : — young ladies who called 
her dear, and who were surprised at every thing ; 
homely matrons, with funny husbands; and 
tiiat intolerable young man, Mr. Caton, who 
was Avorst of all. Fortunately she had still her 
own relations to go to. 

And meanwhile George went on prosing to 
himself — nearly a year since he married ! Long 
happy evenings, Horatia playing on the piano 
wliile he sat and smoked (as he was doing now) 
on the lawn. The whole house brightened by 
her coming — a stir of life, pleasant talk where 
there had only been silence before, or poor Ro- 
berta's gentle commonplaces. Dear Berta! 
It would be as happy a change for her as for him- 
self. He could hardly believe that all this 
treasure of happiness was his, that he had a 
wife in the drawing-room, and that wife Hora- 
tia ; and he put down his cigar, and went and 
looked in at the window to assure himself that 
it was not all a fancy brought about by the 
smoke, the faint perfume of roses, the sweet be- 
wildering air of a summer's day. And in a 
minute he came back, and began to puff tobacco, 
not castles in the air any more. For Horatia 
was there certainly, but so was Lady Whiston ; 
so was Mrs. Dumbleton. Voices, flounces, big 
carriage at the gai'den-gate. It was no fency ; 
and as he did not want to face them all, he went 
back to his seat in the arbor. 

" George !" Horatia calls, opening the win- 
dow and looking out. 

George looks round and shakes his head. 

Horatia, surprised, comes out across the grass. 
" Won't you come and see aunt Car ?" 

*' I am busy," says the doctor. 

"They want us to dine there," says Horatia,- 
putting her hand on his shoulder. "They ex- 
pect Lord Holloway." 

"We dined there yesterday — there is that 
breakfast next week ; make some excuse." 

"But in your profession it is of great conse- 
quence that you should improve your acquaint- 
ance," says Horatia, blushing up. "They 
were just saying so. Lord Holloway has dread- 
ful attacks of the gout." 

"That is what I shall have if I dine there 
any more. You can go, yon know. You can 
make up to Lord Holloway all the better if I am 
not there." 

" How can you say such disagreeable things? 
Of course I must go without yon, if you will not 



come. It will look very odd : I don't like ft at 
all." 

"Then why don't you stay?" says the doc- 
tor in his kind voice, smiling as she frowns. 

" Aunt Car will be hurt as it is," says Hora- 
tia, looking round. " I suppose I had better 
go back and tell her. It is most unpleasant." 

George glanced a quick, doubtful look as she 
walked away unconscious, slim, tal!, graceful, 
Vith her violet dress trailing over the grass and 
the daisies. She stoops her head at the win- 
dow, and passes in under the clustering roses. 
After all, why should not she like to go? George 
asks himself, and though he might have answer- 
ed the question, perhaps he took care not to do 
so. How many such questions are there which 
are best unasked and unanswered? Truth, in- 
deed, is greater than silence, and if we could 
always tell what was true, it would be well to 
speak always. But silence is often better than 
the half-truths we utter ; silence to ourselves 
and of ourselves, as well as to others. 

Horatia came home about one o'clock in the 
morning, and found her husband still up, sit- 
ting in the little study, and Mr. Caton with him. 
The window was open, a candle was flaring on 
the table, and she thought there was a strange 
aromatic smell in the room. But it was hard 
to find Mr. Caton always there, even at that 
hour of the night. She was not safe and she 
looked her displeasure. 

He got up with such a grave face as he made 
her a little stiff bow, that she Avas still more in- 
dignant. George too was grave, though he 
smiled and put out his hand. 

Horatia wrapped her white cloak round her, 
and turned her back upon Caton. 

" What have you been concocting, George? 
why do you sit with the window open ? I wish 
you had been with me. Lord Holloway is per- 
fectly charming, and — " 

"Well, good-night," said Caton suddenly. 
"Good-evening, Mrs. Rich," and he walked 
off. As the door shut Horatia began indig- 
nantly, "That man is insup — " but her hus- 
band stopped her languidly, and said he was 
not up to fighting his friend's battles that night. 
He was tired. "Is this the way he speaks to 
me ?'' Horatia thought. 

The next day the doctor went up to town and 
came back to dinner very silent and much out 
of spirits. And Mr. Caton, as usual, looked in 
in the evening, and they were closeted together 
for some time. Horatia had taken a nervous 
dislike to the poor young man ; his presence was 
almost unendurable to her. Rich looked hurt 
and vexed when she said so one day. 

• ' Why have you taken this aversion to my 
old companion?" he asked. 

"Because he is familiar and interfering," 
cries Horatia. 

"What do you say to Lady Whiston, then?" 
says the doctor, provoked. 

Horatia was still more provoked, and the lit- 
tle discussion ended in her going off alone, as 
usual, to the Dumbleton fete. 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



317 



But she looked so bright and so handsome in 
her white dress, as she wished him good-bye, 
that George secretly relented, and thought he 
should like to see her admired, and determined 
if he could, to come for her, after all. 



VI. 

HoRATiA was not sorry to go by herself. She 
felt more at her ease when her husband was not 
there. Old friends came up to greet her. Two 
old adorers asked her to dance. Mr. Dumble- 
ton gave her his arm, and took her into the 
conservatory for an ice. Here they all were, 
making much of her, welcoming her. Horatia 
could not help contrasting all this with her hus- 
band's grave looks and unconcerned manner. 

"How does the housekeeping go on?" said 
Mr. Dumbleton. 

"Don't talk about it," cried Horatia. "Ev- 
ery thing is so different. My genius does not 
lie in that direction ; and yet — would you be- 
lieve it ? my doctor grumbles at times. What 
a pretty effect ! " 

They were in a long conservatory, full of 
trees and shrubs and flowers and Chinese lan- 
terns. The sound of distant music, the perfume 
of the plants, the soft glimmer of the lights, 
filled tlie whole place, and the stars came 
twinkling through the glass domes. Horatia 
was enchanted instead of being bored as in old 
times. It was an Arabian Night's Entertain- 
ment. One of her cousins, who had been an 
old admirer of hers, came up and scarcely rec- 
ognized her, she looked so wonderfully hand- 
some and happy ; he asked her to dance, and 
Horatia consented, and went off laughing and 
radiant, but Henry Dumbleton looked after her 
a little doubtful as to the entire success of his 
match-making. 

Horatia, meanwhile, twirled and twisted, the 
musicians played one of those charming waltzes 
that seem to be singing and sighing with one 
breath. Tlie music surged and sank again ; it 
■^as like the sea flowing upon a shore ; breath- 
less, excited, Horatia danced on in cadence to 
the tune, and thought this moment ought to 
last forever ; she and her partner went to one 
of the windows to refresh themselves, and stood 
out upon a low balcony, close to the ground, 
and began to talk of old days, as people do 
■when they suddenly grow confidential with 
time and place, and then they talked down to 
later days, and the cousin, whose name was 
Charles Whiston, reproached her for having 
left them as she had done : " Did she never re- 
gret it? Had she quite given up old friends 
for new ?" 

"No, no, no!" cried Horatia; "unequal 
marriages are foolish things, Charles. It is not 
until you find yourself lonely and misunder- 
stood in the midst of people who have been 
brought up to see things en-dessous, instead of 
en-dessus, that you begin to discover how real 
and how insurmountable certain differences are. 
Things with which I have been familiar all my 



life seem strange and unfamiliar to them. 
There is a sort of suspicious defiance I can not 
describe — a sort of meanness, of familiarity, of 
low jocularity." 

" But how could you ever marry him ?" cried 
Charles Whiston, much concerned. " This is 
terrible. You must come away ; you must 
come to us, we are always — " 

Some one who had been sitting under the 
window started up at that moment, and got up 
and walked away. 

"I am not speaking of my husband," said 
Horatia, blushing, and starting, and a little 
ashamed of herself. " I was thinking of — 
of friends — persons who come to the house 
whom I can not be rid of. There is his step- 
mother, for instance — who came a short time 
ago, and interfered in the most unwarrantable 
manner. There is a certain dreadful Dr. Ca- 
ton whom George is forever asking. Can you 
fancy that man daring to call me Mrs. Galli- 
pots ? — don't hiugh — such vulgar insults are no 
laughing matter." 

"Poor Horatia," said her companion, senti- 
mentally. " I assure you I do not feel inclined 
to laugh." 

The musicians began to play a new measure, 
and the dancers set off with fresh spirit. The 
people outside were still pacing. and talking in 
low voices, the trees were hung with brilliant 
jewels of fire, no breath stirred the branches, 
the white dresses gleamed mysteriously through 
the darkness, the light steps loitered, the low 
voices sank. Horatia stood immovable, with 
her head against her hand : her companion was 
sitting on the low stone parapet, and leaning la- 
zily over the side of the balcony, when suddenly 
he started up, and stood listening. 

" Did you hear that ?" he said. And once 
more distinctly sounding through the still night 
came a plaintive cry out of the wood. 

"Oh! go and see," said Horatia; "what 
can it be ?" 

In a moment all the silent enchantment of 
the hour seemed broken and dispelled. That 
forlorn cry had shaken and dispersed the 
dreams, the illusions, the harmonics of the 
summer's night. It was like a pebble falling 
into still waters. But it was only for a mo- 
ment : by degrees the silence, the music, the 
starlight, reassured the startled people ; they 
I forgot once more that pain existed in the world, 
I that trouble could approach them. Horatia 
had almost forgotten her alarm when her cous- 
in rejoined her. 

"It was nothing," he said. "Some one 
fainted — a woman was frightened and scream- 
ed. Dr. Rich was there, and another doctor." 

" My husband!" said Horatia, surprised. 

" Some one told me he had gone home with 
the patient," said Charles Whiston. "Shall 
we have another waltz ?" Tum — tura-te-tum, 
te-tum — the music plays, and off they go. 

When Horatia got home she found a little 
note hurriedly scrawled. "Don't expect me 
1 to-night, I am detained. — Yours, G. R." 



318 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



He came home next day, looking pale and 
exliausted, as if he had been up all night. 

"Who was ill?" Horatia asked. "Who 
fainted?" 

" I can not tell you who it was," said the 
doctor. " Caton attended him. I have been 
very busy, and I am not well myself, Horatia. 
I shall go and lie down." 

"You went up to the hall last night, then ?" 
persisted Horatia. 

George did not answer, but looked at her 
once in an odd sort of way, and then went out 
of the room. 

Horatia never knew exactly what had hap- 
pened that night. It seemed to her somehow 
that her husband was never quite the same 
again after this unlucky fete. She actually be- 
gan to wish for Berta to come back again. 

Roberta's mother had brought her the first 
time, and left her and gone away, after manag- 
ing to give great ofiense to George, as well as 
to his wife, by one or two awkward speeches. 
And when Berta came back to the old trouble 
once more — the old battle and disappointment 
— she determined to be warned by her mother's 
example. She would gladly have staid on at 
home, but George kept writing for her to come, 
and the bugbear of a stepfather growled out, 
"Why didn't she go, since they were so anx- 
ious to have her?" and besides, there was a 
natural yearning after George in her heart, 
which would have brought her from the end of 
the world, if he wished it. 

So now that Horatia was mistress of his 
house, Berta did not like to interfere in the 
household disarrangements — for it was nothing 
else : she found Horatia evidently discontented 
and unsatisfied — George looking worn and out 
of spirits — the dinner unsatisfactory, the furni- 
ture dim and neglected, maids careless and un- 
punctual. Horatia had theories about every 
thing, but did not possess the gift of putting 
them in practice. Every human being had its 
rights, she used to say, and those of servants 
were constantly infringed. The consequence 
was, that though Betty had time to read the 
paper and a course of history judiciously select- 
ed by her mistress, she had not time to dust and 
scrub and scour, as in days of yore, when the 
poor doctor's rights only were considered. 

Roberta found that it was almost more than 
she could do, not to speak, not to interfere. 
She was ready to cry sometimes when her broth- 
er came in, tired and exhausted, and had to wait 
an hour for his dinner. She thought him look- 
ing ill, indeed, and changed. By degrees she 
almost got to hate Horatia, and did not do her 
justice for those good qualities she certainly 
possessed. Horatia's temper was perfect; she 
bore Berta's irrepressible glances and loud re- 
proaches admirably. She saw that her husband 
loved his sister; she would not pain him by 
blaming her. She often wondered that he 
should seem more at home with Roberta than 
with herself. She thought herself infinitely su- 
perior, cleverer, handsomer, better bred ; but 



she had not Berta's rare gift of home-making, 
her sweet repose of manner, her unselfish devo- 
tion to those for whom she cared. Horatia 
rarely forgot herself. Berta was like her broth- 
er, and almost lived in the people she loved. 

And so Horatia's beautiful black eyes did not 
see all the many things that were amiss ; her 
soft white hands did not work for her husband's 
comfort; days went by; little estrangements 
went by ; the geese cackled on the common ; 
sick people died or got well ; well people fell 
sick ; George Rich went his rounds, and sighed 
sometimes as he looked at his beautiful wife. 
It had not answered, somehow. 

Every day little stories are told : sometimes 
about great things, sometimes about nothing at 
all. This one was about nothing at all, and j'et 
the story was there to read, and I am trying to 
write it down. 

The people who tell the stories are generally 
too interested and unhappy, or happy, or anx- 
ious, or vexed, to look at their daily lives from 
another person's point of view ; and sometimes 
even other people standing by have not the gifc 
of seeing what is passing before their eyes. 
Horatia, who was quick about other people, was 
blind to her own faults. Dr. Rich was the per- 
son in that household who could best read the 
disappointing little history that was telling out, 
day by day, under his roof, and the struggle of 
his daily life was to be blind, and not to read 
the open page. Horatia had no such scruples, 
and always said wliat she thought, and thought 
what she liked, and spoke openly to George, to 
the Dumbletons, of her fancies, disappointments, 
dislikes, particularly of her dislike to Mr. Caton. 
Now that Berta was there, he was always com- 
ing, and Horatia did not at all fitncy such a 
brother-in-law ; and so she told the girl, who 
laughed, and blushed, and acquiesced. Horatia 
said as much to George one day : he answered, 
somewhat absently, "Caton is a very clever, 
good fellow. I am afraid Roberta will have 
nothing to say to him ; but he comes to see me, 
Hoi;atia." And that evening, after dinner, 
coming out into the garden, she saw, much to 
her disgust, Mr. Caton's red whiskers and a 
cloud of tobacco under the arbor, where her 
husband was also sitting, apparently deep in 
conversation with his friend. 

Another grievance she had, which was this : 
she inherited a few hundred pounds unexpect- 
edly about this time, which she wanted to lay 
out in doing up the house and the garden, and 
in more Persian mats, and a brougham. Dr. 
Rich insisted on her leaving the wdiole sum un- 
touched at the banker's. "You shall have it 
in due time," he said. "Horatia, can't you 
believe that I have some good reason for not 
spending money just now ?" She could not un- 
derstand this strange fancy for saving. He 
would go nowhere ; he would insist on econo- 
mizing in every way; he would not willingly 
ask even her cousins to dinner. Wearied, dis- 
appointed, provoked, she began to tell herself 
that her marriage had been a mistake— she be- 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



gan to long to get away, to sigh for and to dream 
of liberty. She did not know how far these 
dreams had carried her, once she had given way 
to them. She had wished for Berta, but when 
Berta came she grew jealous of her. Life was 
a miserable delusion, Horatia often thought. 

Berta could not help seeing there was some- 
thing wrong, and put it all to poor Horatia's 
score. It seemed to her that Mi-. Caton knew 
more than he chose to tell ; for sometimes she 
would catch a half-pitying, hesitating glance ; 
and once, when she met him on the common, he 
stopped short and said, "Miss Roberta, I want 
to speak to you ;" but she walked on rapidly 
and pretended not to hear, and then he changed 
his mind and turned away abruptly. She did 
not dare to ask what it was, for she thought that 
after all it might only be the old story that she 
did not want to listen to. It had been settled 
that she was to go home that day for a Sunday 
to see her mother. She was glad to go, for she 
felt as if she could keep silence no longer, and 
might say something to George or to Iloratia 
which she would afterwards regret. She felt 
that her mother's sympathy could help her to 
silence and toleration. She had but an hour 
more to be silent. Whp can tell what an hour 
may do ? 



VII. 

She had made her pi-eparations and she was 
sitting that afternoon sewing in the window, 
until it should be time to go. Horatia was ly- 
ing on the sofa, tlie sun was pouring in. It 
looked a peaceful little scene enough — flowers 
and young women, novels, needlework, silence, 
sunlight — when presently Horatia put down her 
novel, and began to talk ; and as she talked, 
Berta began to sew very fiercely, and to blush 
up angrily. 

"It is a shame," Horatia was saying, " that 
I may not choose my own company ; that I am 
to be forced to receive a person so distasteful to 
me as Mr. Caton. His familiarity is really un- 
bearable. Until your return, Roberta, I hope 
we shall see less of him. To-day he came up 
to me, and told me that I ought to take more 
care of George. You and your brother can not 
understand how distasteful this sort of thing is 
— what a real want this want of congenial soci- 
ety is to me." 

"You have George," said Berta, stitching 
away. 

"George is a dear, good George," said Ho- 
ratia, passing her hand Avearily over her eyes ; 
"but he has not been brought up to many 
things that I have been accustomed to. I feel 
a little want of sympathy, a little lonely some- 
times." , 

A cleverer person than Roberta might have 
understood her better ; but the girl was thor- 
oughly provoked and offended. All her pent- 
up passion burst out: after all her days of si- 
lence she spoke, scarcely knowing what she said : 



" Do you dare to complain — you who have 
made George sad and lonely by coming to live 
with him — yoa who don't appreciate him, who 
can't understand his goodness ? He is the best, 
wisest, and dearest of men ; his gentleness and 
forbearance are wonderful. You neglect him 
as no wife ever neglected her husband. You do 
nothing to help him. When he is worn out you 
complain to him about yourself — you are so 
used to think of yourself, Horatia. I must 
speak. I may never come into your house 
again ; but it breaks my heart to see it all. 
And when he comes home sad and out of 
spirits, you don't look up — you scarcely heed 
him ; you say, ' George, shut the door,' or ' poke 
the fire,' or whatever it may be. I always used 
to think George's wife would be the happiest, 
proudest woman in the whole world, until you 
came to undeceive me." 

Even Horatia could not bear this : she, too, 
got angry and started up upon her sofa. 

"You certainly shall never come here again, 
Roberta, unless I am away. You speak of 
things which are not your concern ; and you 
should have been silent. I am quite able to 
appreciate my husband without any body to 
point out his merits. But sometimes I think, 
Roberta, that either you or I had better go. 
Stay," she said : " I am not at all certain that 
it is I who should remain." And she gather- 
ed up her papers and books, and drew herself 
up to her full height, and sailed out of the 
room. 

And so poor tired George, coming home 
earlier than usual to see his sister before she 
left, found only Roberta crying and sobbing in 
the drawing-room. Horatia was up stairs with 
a nervous attack. A strong smell of burning 
and a black smoke came in whifi's out of the 
kitchen. The maids were in her room sym- 
pathizing with the mistress ; and the dinner was 
spoiling unheeded. The penitent Roberta tried 
in A'ain to stop crying. 

"I am going away," she said; "and oh, 
George, I don't know when I may come back 
again. It is too disagreeable for Horatia to 
have me in the house. I have behaved so 
dreadfully. I only wonder she did not turn me 
out on the common. I am very sony, dear 
George. I will do any thing. I will beg her 
pardon, if she will be only kind enough to for- 
give what has passed, and let me come and see 
you again. Because I do love you almost more 
than any body in the world. Please don't hate 
me for behaving so badly." 

Then he had to go up stairs to Horatia. 
When he came down he was looking very pale 
and biting his lips. His wife had gasped out 
things about "your relations ;" about the way in 
which he preferred them and their ways to hers ; 
about his being more happy before she came; 
about her loneliness ; about — But there is 
no use in recapitulating all her nervous griefs. 
"Are you packed up, Roberta?" said the doc- 
tor, with one more sigh. "I will drive you 
down to the station. I must see you off". It 



320 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



is only four o'clock now ; if we catch the five- 
o'clock train it will still be light by the time 
you get home. I think your sister will get over 
it sooner if you are not here. Don't cry, dear- 
est ; it will be all right in a little. I can quite 
understand her annoyance. Don't cry any 
more, Berta ; that won't mend matters," he 
said, cheerfully. Then he went into his study, 
and shut the door, and fell down into his big 
chair, and let his head fall heavily on his breast. 
His pulses were throbbing with grief; it was all 
he could do to subdue his agitation. His wife's 
passionate indignation and reproaches had up- 
set him ; and that Berta, whom he looked upon 
almost as a daughter, should be estranged, and 
that he should be left quite alone— more lonely 
than he had ever been — was a cruel stab to 
this tender and sensitive heart. When it was 
time for Berta to go, he came out of his room, 
looking exactly as usual. He went to his wife's 
bedside, and said good-bye, but she would not 
answer him ; and then he came down again, 
and helped his sister into the little carriage, and 
took his place leisurely beside her, and they 
drove away. 

The trees seemed to fly past them, the birds 
went wheeling over the fields, a blue-gray mist 
hung over the distant hedgerows and the hay- 
stacks, over the farmsteads and cottages nest- 
ling in the little hollows. 

The landscape was painted in black and 
gray, with clouds and rain-water. Now and 
then a rain-laden wind would come blowing 
freshly into Roberta's face. 

As they were nearing the station, somebody 
came up alongside upon a tired horse. It was 
Mr. Caton. 

" I was going to look for you, " said Dr. Rich, 
pulling up. "Will you come in this evening, 
about nine o'clock ? We can't wait now, we 
shall miss the train." And then he bent for- 
ward and said a few words, in a low voice. 
Berta wondered what it was all about, as she 
nodded a grave good-bye. Mr. Caton looked 
up with a strange expression. She wondered 
v^'hether it was because she was going away; 
and then she wondered whether she should ever 
forgive herself, and tliought what a comfort it 
■would be to tell her mother every thing, and to 
be well scolded as she deserved, and then kissed 
and forgiven like a child. She gave such a tre- 
mendous sigh once, that her brother began to 
laugh. "You silly child !" he said ; forget all 
about it. I will undertake that Horatia shall 
bear no malice. A little change will make all 
smooth again, and you must come back direct- 
ly." Then he drove on silently for a minute, 
and then he said, "Berta, do you think you 
could ever fancy Caton ? — he is a little rough, 
but he is a thorough good fellow, and very fond 
of you." 

" I am very fond of him," said Berta, smil- 
ing, "but I don't want to marry him. Per- 
haps, if you praise him very much, George, in 
time — Ah, here we are !" And presently Ber- 
ta had kissed him, and said good-bye, and 



watched him until the train had carried her 
away, and he disappeared. By leaning out she 
just saw him for one instant more, looking after 
her with his kind, smiling face ; and then the 
train went suddenly on through the quiet coun- 
try, canying away Roberta,with her troubles and 
puzzles. The doctor travels homeward, strange- 
ly abstracted ; and Horatia has risen from her 
bed, where she had been lying, and is making 
desperate and angry resolutions. 

" Was he indeed more happy before I came ? 
He did not deny it. When I gave up every 
thing for him, I thought, at least, that he would 
love me." Slie smoothed her tumbled hair, 
put on a shawl, and went down stairs and out 
into the open air. " It will do me good," she 
thought, as she opened thegardendoor,and walk- 
ed along the gravel walk towards the arbor. A 
book was lying on the seat ; George or Roberta 
must have left it. He sometimes smoked under 
the honeysuckles after dinner. Roberta used to 
take her work there of a morning. Horatia 
hated the place, and never went near it. The 
faded summer green looked almost fresh again 
in the gray, damp atmosphere ; the birds flew 
over her head ; and across the common the dah- 
lias were beginning to come out. 

It was chilly and dismal enough, and Hora- 
tia went back presently into the house. Slie 
was shocked and hurt and wounded. Siie 
was not angry, exactly ; she did not like her 
husband less, but she was astonished to find she 
had not rnade him happy. He had not denied 
it when she accused him of unhappiness. Slie . 
was telling herself, with some quiet scorn, that 
he wanted a housekeeper, like Roberta, and not 
a wife ; that if he had been really happier be- 
fore she came to him, it would be perhaps as 
well that she should leave him now. She was 
in a hard and cruel frame of mind. She began 
to ask herself the old question, if it had not 
been better for them both if they had never mar- 
ried ? She began to wonder how she had ever 
been so infatuated as to give up every thing for 
this commonplace man. She was sitting on 
the sofa, with her head against her hand when 
he came in. 

" You saw her off?" said Horatia, by way of 
saying something. 

" Yes, we just caught the train," her husband 
answered', "or I should have had to bring her 
back." 

"I am glad you were in time," said Horatia, 
coldly. "George, you must make Roberta un- 
derstand that she is never to speak to me in such 
a way again." 

" She was over-excited : she is very sorry for 
what has happened ; she told me to tell you so." 

" She may well be sorry," said the wife. " I 
am very sorry that all this has happened ; it has 
made me know — made me understand — " and 
she burst into tears. 

Poor George sank back wearily into his chair. 
" Go on," he said. " Tell me all your troubles, 
you poor woman. What has it made you under- 
stand ?" 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



321 



"That we have failed to make one another 
happy," said Horatia, in her willfulness. "I 
could have borne to bo miserable myself, but I 
confess I can not bear to hear that you — that you 
were happier before I came." 

"But it is not so. I hare been more happy 
since you came, Horatia," said the doctor, witli 
kind and wonderful forbearance. " I have been 
more happy and more unhappy. I have had you 
as well as myself to care for." 

"Ah, no!" cried the woman, foolishly and 
madly ; " it isn't so. I see it in your face, 
George ; I have made up my mind. We shall 
be friends always, whatever happens, but I will 
go back to my aunt. Roberta, who is a drudge 
at heart, can come and keep your house, and sat- 
isfy you better than your wife could ever hope 
to do. Do you hear me?" she said, shrilly, for 
he did not answer. " It is because I wish to be 
your friend, and not your housekeeper, that I 
am going ; it is because people who do not agree 
are best apart." 

"I don't think so," the doctor said, slowly, 
and looking at her in a strange, odd sort of way. 
"Long habit brings folks together at last; for- 
bearance is a wholesome discipline for one and 
for the other ; a man and a woman wlio are both 
sincerely trying to do their duty can't fail one 
day to find their best happiness in it, and together. 
Suppose we part — it may be forever : the ways 
of Providence are inscrutable — what do we gain ? 
— a lifelong, maybe an eternal, loneliness and 
estrangement and indifference ; or suppose we 
struggle on together for a little time, Horatia, 
and learn at last to love one another, at any 
rate to forgive, to sympathize, to endure ? Can 
you hesitate one moment ?" he said, in his sad 
voice. 

" I should not hesitate," said Horatia, sobbing 
still, " if it were not for Roberta. If she comes 
here, I can not and will not staj' ; my duty does 
not extend to her. George, we might love one 
another, even if we did not live together — I might 
still be your best friend." 

The poor doctor, hurt, wounded beyond ex- 
pression, could listen no longer, and he got up 
with a great sigh and walked away out of the 
room. Horatia flung herself down on the floor, 
and buried her face in her hands. " He 
doesn't mean it," she kept saying to herself. " I 
know he would be more happy without me. He 
is too good for nic. I own he is too good for me. 
I can't love him ; I can't understand him ; I 
make him miserable. He looks wretched, and 
ill, and unhappy, and it is all my doing ; and it 
is his doing that I am wretched. AVhy did he 
bring me here ? I must go ; it will be better 
for each of us. Yes, I must — I will go." 

George was walking up and down outside in 
the garden. He once looked up through the 
uncurtained window, and saw her prostrate in 
her trouble. How could he make her more 
happy ? — it was indeed a strange puzzle and be- 
wilderment. He felt that she scarcely deserved 
kindness, and then he said to himself, kindness 
deserved was no kindness. " What merit have 
X . 



ye?" he muttered, and something more about 
publicans and sinners, and so once more he 
went back into the warm little fire-lighted room. 
He went up to her, but she did not heed him ; 
he stooped over her ; he picked her up off the 
floor. "Horatia," he said, "don't you care 
for me in the least? do you want to make me 
very lonely, very wretched ? Go, if you like, 
but I tell you you will be more miserable tlian 
you are now. Look at me, and tell me what 
you mean to do." 

How sad he looked, how kind, how endur- 
ing. Horatia could not help it. .She was 
forced to give iu. She still wanted to go, to 
turn back to her old easy life ; but she had not 
the heart or the courage to say so. She was 
silent ; and she left her hand in his. He ac- 
cepted her silence. 

"We will nevei- talk about it again," he said. 
"And you must try and be more happy, my 
poor woman." . 

Then he took a cigar, and went and lit it at 
the fire, and took up iiis hat, and said he would 
be in directly. 

" I should like a cup of tea," he said. " I 
am only going to smoke my cigar in the garden. 
I Call me when it is rcady." 

Horatia watched him as he passed the win- 
dow ; and she then rang the bell and ordered 
some tea 5 and then once more sat down by the 
fire, staring at the embers. It was useless try- 
ing to get away. He would not let her go. 
By this fireside she must remain to the end. 
How inconceivably forbearing he was, how kind, 
how patient, how forgiving. Was it indeed im- 
possible to love him? She heard his steps 
pacing the gravel outside. Why would he not 
let her go? What could make him wish that 
she should remain ? What, indeed ! Then, 
at last, she began suddenly to blame herself. 

"I don't think I know how to appreciate his 
goodness," she said. "Heigho! I wish he 
had married a model wife, who would have 
known how to make him happy, and at home." 



VIII. 

Betst brought in the tea and the candles. 
Horatia started from her low chair, where she 
had been sitting in a sort of dream of remorse, 
reproach, regret, indecision, and proceeded to 
make it; and then she poked the fire, and 
straightened her somewhat untidy locks, and 
then she went and tapped at the window for 
George to come in. 

When she looked out at the end of five min- 
utes, she was surprised to see that a shower of 
, rain was falling. She opened the casement, 
! and all the wet drops came plashing into her 
face. She said to herself that he must have 
1 come in at the garden-door, and gone up to his 
I room. She went out into the passage, his hat 
was not there ; she ran up the narrow staircase, 
and went and knocked at his door. Then she 



323 



OUT OF THE WORLD. 



looked in. The room was dark and empty. 
No, he was not there ; for she spoke his name 
and no one answered. Horatia went down into 
the drawing-room to wait once more. The ket- 
tle was boiling over on the hearth, the candles 
were flaring, for she had forgotten to shut the 
window. As she went to close it, a great gust 
of wet-laden wind surged into the room, and one 
of the candles went out, and the door banged. 

It was dismal and cheerless enough. She 
began to wish that George would come in. Had 
he gone across the common ? No ; she would 
have seen him pass. She went to the window 
once more ; the trees were waving a little in 
the darkness. The rain was falling still when 
she went to the garden-door and called out, 
"George! come to tea!" Do you not know 
the dreary sound of a voice calling in the dark- 
ness? She came back into the sitting-room, 
took up a book, and tried to read, glancing at 
the window every instant. Once she almost 
thought she saw her husband looking in, but it 
was only fancy. The book she had taken was 
the second volume of some novel. She looked 
on the table for the first, and then remembered 
that she had seen it lying, not on the table, but 
on the seat in the arbor at the end of the gar- 
den. And then suddenly she said to herself, 
" That is where George has taken shelter from 
the rain ; how foolish of him not to come home ! 
I think I will go and fetch him." 

She went' into the hall and tied on a water- 
proof; she pulled the hood over her head ; she 
Avent to the garden-door a second time, hesi- 
tated a moment, and then passed out. It was 
darker a-nd wetter than she had expected, and 
she thought of turning back ; but while she was 
thinking of it she was going quickly along the 
gravel-walk towards the arbor, brushing the 
wet gooseberry-bushes and box borders, a little 
afraid of the blackness, a little provoked with 
herself for her foolishness in coming. She 
could just make out the arbor looking very 
black in the night ; as she came neai-er, a sort 
of terror thrilled over her, for she thought she 
saw something within the darkness. "George !" 
she said, in a sort of frightened way, springing 
forward. "Why are you there, George?" she 
almost screamed as she came close up. She 
saw — yes, surely she saw — his white face gleam- 
ing through the blackness. She began to 
tremble with terror, for he did not move or 
seem to notice her, though she came quite close 
up, and stood before him, gasping. With a 
desperate fear, she put out her hand and touch- 
ed the white face. And still George did not 
move or spe.ak. 

A few minutes ago he had been a man with 
a tender heart sorely tried, with a voice to 
speak, with eyes to watch her reproachfully as 
she thrust him away, with a kindly, forgiving j 
hand always ready, and willingly outstretched. 
And now, what was he ? — who was he ? What ! 
distance lay between them ! Could he hear 
her feeble wails and outcries across the awful 
giilf ? ' ' George — George ! — Oh ! George ! " I 



the poor woman screamed out, hardly conscious. 
She did not faint ; she did not quite realize the 
awful truth — she could not. 

In a minute, with hurried voices and foot- 
steps, the maids came up the. garden, and with 
them the boy, who had brought a lantern. And 
suddenly flashing through the darkness the light 
fell upon tiie dead man's face. It lit up the ar- 
bor, the dripping creepers, the wooden walls, the 
awful figure that was sitting there unmoved; 
and then Horatia fell with a sort of choking 
cry to the ground, prostrate in the wet, crush- 
ing the borders, the green plants that were 
drinking in the rain which still fell heavily. 

The day had begun to dawn when Horatia 
came to herself, and opened her eyes in a 
dazed, wide, strange way. For a minute she 
hardly understood where she was, and then 
somehow she knew that she was lying on the 
sofa in the disordered drawing-room. A maid 
was kneeling beside her, the garden-door was 
open, the keen morning air was blowing in in 
gusts — so gray, so chill, so silent was it, that 
for a moment Horatia almost fixncied that it 
was she who had died in the night; not George, 
surely not George. A man's low voice at her 
head, saying, "She is coming to herself,'' thrill- 
ed through her as she thought for a moment that 
it might be her husband. What she seemed to 
remember was too .horrible to be thought of — 
too horrible to be true. It was not true. The 
wild hope brought the blood into her cheeks. 
She moved a little in an agony of suspense, and 
faltered his name. Only as she spoke, some- 
how there was no response. The half-uttered 
■words died away, the hands that were bathing 
her head ceased their toil. By the silence — 
by the sudden quiet — she knew that she had 
spoken to the empty air; that though he might 
hear her, he would never, never answer any 
more, never come, never heed her call again ; 
and then, suddenly, with a swift pang of de- 
spair, hopeless, desperate, she realized it all. 

Caton, who had almost hated her, who had 
said to himself that he would be her judge — she 
had killed her husband, she had wearied and 
embittered the last few hours of his life, and he, 
Caton, would tell her the truth, if there was no 
one else to speak it — Caton, who, in his indig- 
nation, had thought all this, could not find it 
in his heart now to utter one harsh word. He 
came round, and stood looking compassionately 
at her white wan face lying back, with all the 
black rippling hair pushed away ; and as he 
stood there, she put up her hands and covered 
her eyes, and shivered. How could he judge 
one so forlorn ? Instead of the hard words he 
had meant to use, he only said, " He had fear- 
ed it all along, Mrs. Rich. He was not afraid 
for himself, but for those he loved. It was a 
heart disease. It was hopeless from the first ; 
he knew it, but he would not let me tell you. 
He was the best, the dearest—" the young man's 
voice broke as he spoke ; he turned away, and 
went and stood at the window. 



OUT OF THE WOKLD. 



323 



There was a. long silence. At last, Horatia, 
speaking faintly, said, '"I want you to send for 
lloberta. Can you send now, at once?" 

"I telegraphed last night," Caton answered, 
"when I thought there miglit be hope. She 
will be here in the morning. I will meet her 
and bring her to you." 

Once more Horatia moved ; she got up from 
tlie couch where she had been lying, and she 
tottered forward a few steps towards the door. 

Caton sprang after her. " Are you going up 
stairs to lie down ? Where are you going ?" 

"Where, oh, where, indeed, am I going?" 
cried poor Horatia. " Oh, my George, my 
George !" and with a sort of cry, she flung her- 
self back into a great arm-chair, which was near. 
"Go — p raj', go away," she sobbed to them; 
"only tell me when Koberta comes." And so, 
sacred, reluctant, they went away and left her. 

Caton never forgot that .terrible dawning. 
The black garden, the white mist creeping 
along the ground, the chill light spreading, the 
widow's sobs and sorrowful outcries breaking 
the silence of the niglit. 

It was Eoberta who roused poor Horatia from 
a sort of swoon of grief and remorse — Roberta, 
white, trembling, silent, who led her into the 
next room, where all was so peaceful that their 
sobs were hushed ; so sacred, that it seemed to 
them as if it was a proflinity to even complain. 
Only once more Horatia burst out. "Forgive 
me, George !" she suddenly cried, falling on 
her knees, and then she wildly and imploringly 
looked up at Eoberta's set white face. The 
girl changed, melted, faintly smiled, and stoop- 
ed and kissed her sister. 

" Oh, Horatia, what has he to do with 
trouble and injury and sorrow now ? Forgive- 
ness belongs to this world ; only peace, only 
love to the next." 

Horatia Avas very ill for a long time after 
this. Roberta was able to stay with George's 
wife, and to nurse her very faithfully and ten- 
derly in her sorrows. In time Horatia got well, 
and prepared to live her old life again. It was 
the old life, but the woman was not the same 
woman. And George was carried away from 
iiis sister, from his wife, from his home, from 
his daily work. He was still alive somehow 
when Roberta thought of him. She could see 
his face, hear his voice, love him more tenderly 
even than in his life. 

One day Caton told Berta, as he had told 
Horatia, that George had thought himself seri- 
ously ill for some short time, and though he did 
not consider the danger imminent, he had taken 
pains to put his aflfairs in order, and to leave 
enough behind for the provision of those he 
loved. 

"When did he first know — " 

Roberta hesitated, and her eyes filled with 
tears, and Caton said that his first attack was 
one night when they were sitting together in 
the study. Mrs. Rich had gone off to her 
grand relations. " I remember she came back 
and talked about her partners," he said. 



" She did not know ?" Berta said. 

"Perhaps you never heard that he fainted 
away at that party at Mrs. Dumbleton's ?" Ca- 
ton went on, sighing. "He went up to town 
next day to see a doctor. I am not sure that 
he was right to keep it secret. He would not 
let me speak. I very nearly told you once, 
only you stopped me." 

And Berta remembered the day she had met 
Caton on the road, and when she would not stop 
to speak to him. Things were changed now, 
for they had met in the lane by chance, and 
were walking on side by side towards^ the com- 
mon. The common rippled westward, scattered 
with stones, and clumps of furze, and dells and 
hollows ; geese cackled ; sunset streamed across 
it ; roads branched here and there leading to 
other green lanes, or to distant villages, or to 
London, whose neighboring noise and rush 
seemed to make this quiet country suburb seem 
more quiet. The river runs between these furze- 
grown commons and London. People coming 
from the city, as they cross the bridge, seem to 
leave their cares and busy concerns behind them, 
and to breathe more freely as they come out upon 
the fresh, wind-blown plains. 

Caton and Roberta walked along one of these 
straight roads, talking sadly enough ; her eyes 
were full of tears. Caton's voice was broken as 
he spoke of what was past : to walk along with 
Roberta, even in this sorrowful companionshi]i, 
was a sort of happiness : but even this was not 
to last for long ; she was going ; Horatia was go- 
ing ; and Caton was to succeed to the old place, 
with all its sad memories, and he thought to 
himself that he had lost his friend, and that Ro- 
berta would never care for him, and that life was 
a dismal thing, and he almost wished it was over. 
And he said almost as much. They had come 
to the place where their two roads parted ; Ro- 
berta said good-bye, and looked up shy and gen- 
tle, blushing under her black hat. Caton put 
out his hand, and said: "This has been our 
last walk. You will go that way by the gate, 
and I shall walk straight on across the common, 
and we may perhaps never even meet again." 
His voice sounded sad and reproachful, though 
he did not know it ; and Berta's blushes sud- 
denly faded, and she looked away, and did not 
speak. 

A number of birds flew over their heads as 
they stood there, parting. There was nobody 
near to heed them, only an old gray horse brows- 
ing the turf, a little flock of geese clustering 
round a pool hard by. Berta saw it all in a 
strange vivid way. She stood there, reluctant to 
wait, and yet still more reluctant to go. The 
roads gleamed farther and farther asunder; slie 
hesitated, wondered, waited still ; but she did 
not know all that she had tacitly decided until 
she looked up at last, and met Caton's honest 
bright eyes with her gentle glance. And so at 
last he was made happy, and the woman he had 
loved so well had learnt to care for him, touched 
by his faithful friendship for her brother, his 
fiiithful devotion to herself. 



MAKING MERRY. 



MAKING MERRY. 



"Sucli as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe." 



We were all upon the terrace one morn- 
ing, in front of the old chateau. The dejeu- 
ner was just over, the sunshine had not readied 
us yet, and we were sitting under the old gray 
towers, watching a river, and some wooded 
slopes, all changing in the morning light. This 
September sunshine had turned the whole coun- 
try to gold and lovely red and russet. The 
rising grounds upon which the old towers stand, 
the valley, tlie far-away hill, were painted and 
checkered and shaded with bright crisp autum- 
nal color. The trees were like the trees in Alad- 
din's gardens, with gold pieces and jewels hang- 
ing from the branches, or sparkling in the brown 
turf. 

The morning seemed to come to us across 
fields and villages, over the river which went 
shining and wending away beyond the arches 
of the bridge at Meulan into that dim and un- 
known country which seems to bound all that is 
most beautiful. M. de V. had lighted his ci- 
gar, the ladies were working, the gentlemen 
were making their plans for the day, and the 
turkey-cocks came ambling down the hill, to be 
fed by little Mary. "Tiens, voila ta St. Come,''^ 
said she, giving one of them a big piece of bread, 
with which it instantly scrambled off in a flus- 
ter, shaking all its red bags and tassels as it 
went. Winifred asked what was a " St. Come." 
Madame de V. smiled, and said it was some- 
thing that she must see. It was a fete at Meu- 
lan, beyond the bridge on the little island in the 
river, and they called the fairings " St. Comes" 
iu that part of the world. In the mean time the 
kind host was making arrangements for every 
one of us to be driven there and back in various 
open carriages, which were to be in waiting at 
the very moment at which each of us wished to 
go and to return. Some begged to go twice, 
others, less enthusiastic, said once would content 
them. 

St. Come was a martyr : it is his memory 
which is held sacred, and to which all these 
small altars are erected, with their offerings of 
gingerbread, sugar -stick toys and crockery, 
bobbins, cotton laces, and nightcaps. Popguns 
are fired off, a dentist with a drum comes all 
the way from Paiis, the celebrated two-headed 
child arrives in its bottle of spirits-of-wine, 
pleasures succeed one anotlicr, and all this 



cheerful clatter, all the little flags, all the games 
and lotteries which are going on, are to do the 
saint honor. He was, while in the flesh, a wise 
Arabian physician, who seems to have given his 
advice gratis, and to have practised in partner- 
ship with his brother, St. Damien. They were 
afterwards both martyred towards the close of 
the thirteenth century; but the 27th of Sep- 
tember ever since has been consecrated to the 
memory of the good St. Come, and the inhabit- 
ants of Meulan and its surrounding villages 
have elected themselves his especial votaries. 

All the carts from all the neighborhood seem- 
ed to be jogging along the white dusty road which 
leads from V., with its white walls and vines 
and trellises, and glimpses of the river, to Meu- 
lan. The country carts were heaped up with 
delightful primitive-looking people, with kind 
smiling faces, and caps and satin-bows, and 
bran-new blouses. In one jolting conveyance 
I noticed seven happy - looking girls, packed 
closely away, all in smart white caps, with satin 
ribbons, and loops and rufiles quite crisp and 
standing on end. They jogged on laughing, 
while tiie young men of the party walked along 
the road by their side. Other vehicles there 
were, with nice nutcracker old women in the 
old-fashioned cap and red cotton dress of tlie 
last century. They looked like the figures out 
of Noah's arks, like chimney ornaments, or 
water-color sketches, or descriptions in books 
of travels. They danced fat white doll-babies ; 
they held little girls upon their knees, tied up 
into pinafores, and with funny frill caps fitting 
close to their round little bullet-heads. There 
Avere expectant little boys in pinafores, too, and 
old fellows in snuff-brown coats and wonderful 
waistcoats, with patterns like maps and leopard- 
skins. Tiiere were also donkeys, with tall wooden 
erections upon their backs, containing their mis- 
tresses, whose feet dangled into baskets. 

All the people along the road came to their 
doors to see us go by, and presently we drove 
into the old-fashioned market-place, with the 
bridge spanning the river, and with the great 
town-hall, whose spire dominates the town, and 
strikes the hours. It was an abbey once, and 
stands on the hill : the town clusters round it : 
the narrow streets climb the hillside, and wind 
corners and disappear. The river flows down 



328 



MAKING MERRY. 



below between glitterinj^j banks. Broad white 
roads lead to Vaux, to Poissy, and along them 
the carts come rolling through the dust. 

We already begin to hear the distant booming 
of the fair, to the accompaniment of the scream- 
ing ofa thousand pigs. If the old men had put one 
in mind of Mr. and Mrs. Noah and Shem and Ham 
(or Cham as he is called in France), it would 
seem as if all these animals had been emptied 
out of a gigantic Noah's ark into the market- 
place. They are lying about, on their backs, on 
their Iieads, on their fat sides, grunting, squall- 
ing, squeaking in the most distracting manner: 
whereas the little donkeys arc quiet and well- 
behaved, and stand in rows under the cathedral 
walls, waiting to be bought. There is such a 
noise and cliatter and confusion that one scarce- 
ly knows at last which are i>igs and which are 
old women ; for they are all talking together, 
remonstrating violently, an-d tumbling about 
over one another in the straw. Tlic little cliil- 
dren stand at safe distances absorbed in the bar- 
gains which are going on. The poor little pigs 
are poked and pinched, and caught up by the 
leg and the ear, and flung anywhere and any- 
how. They are small and lively, not horrible 
contemplative obesities like those one sees in 
England. Of all the interesting animals I re- 
marked on this occasion, I will only particular- 
ize one little tortoise-shell pig witli brown and 
red spots, for I was struck by the wistful glances 
a pretty peasant-woman was directing towards 
it. "That is the one I should have liked !" she 
said with a sigh to a sympathizing friend ; and, 
indeed, wlio has not a little tortoise-shell pig 
somewhere or other out of reach — unattainable? 
If the pretty peasant-woman were to obtain her 
little pig, she would pop it into one of those 
great earthenware pots that are being sold by 
the bridge — they are something the shape of the 
Roman amphorae, very gracefully designed and 
prettily ornamented — the pretty peasant-woman 
would tlien salt down the object of her desires, 
and eat it up by degrees during the winter. 

But all this squeaking and moralizing is only 
a flourish of trumpets at the opening of the en- 
tertainment. We hurry across the bridge to 
the little island where the fair is held : country 
blouses, babies, amiable papas in white linen 
with their families, elegant mammas in the last 
Meulan fashions. Here is one street of stalls 
for the sale of gingerbread and gimcracks, with 
a cross-street for entertaining games and shows. 
Tiie great time for the shows is at night ; in the 
day-time we content ourselves with munching 
gingerbread and playing at rouge et noir. The 
fortunate may win seven dozen of macaroons 
stuck at equal distances upon dubious sheets of 
white paper,with very little trouble, or exchange 
tlicm for elegant chimney-ornaments, or water- 
color sketches of dragoons, and ladies, and roses. 
It is a pretty sight, blue sky overhead, shining 
and twinkling through the branches of the ave- 
nue ; people singing, talking, and staring at the 
gingerbread, of which perhaps the most delicious 
sort is called semelle, from its appetizing likeness 



I to the sole of a shoe. The grand ladies from 

j tlie town are walking up and down between tlie 
stalls, gracefully courtesying and dipping to each 
other. One elegante ati'ects a blue Scotch cap, 
with a tuft of blue ostrich feathers ; all the ladies 
are neatly finished off' with beautiful little frills, 
and many of them lean on the arms of gaitered 
husbands with broad-brimmed hats, evidently 

! prepared to initiate their families into all the 
amusements of the show. 

The Celebrated Two-headed Child in- 

' vites us to enter and examine. He is repre- 
sented alive and crowned with roses, and sur- 
rounded by an admiring throng. We are sat- 

, isfied with the picture outside, for il. de V., 

I who good-naturedly goes in to reconnoitre, as- 
sured us that the sight is not only revolting, 
but in a bottle. Next door. Mademoiselle 
Rachel gives her interesting exhibition. Ma- 

I demoiselle Rachel is a bright-eyed little bird, 
who hops out of a cage, and presents you with 
the card you selected at hazard from her mas- 
ter's well-worn pack. Her discrimination would 
be more extraordinary still if the cards in the 

[ pack were not all kings of spades ; but Ma- 
demoiselle Rachel is unconscious of the decep- 
tion : she hops from her little perch with a clear 
conscience, neatly digs up the card with her bill, 

! and takes a single grain of millet from her keej)- 
cr's hand, as a reward, before she goes back into 

I her prison. She has a rival ; it is like Ander- 
sen's fairy tale of the " Princess and the Pot- 

j sherd." Mademoiselle Rachel is all very well 

I in her way, but not to be compared to the won- 

I derful singing-bird out of the snuff-box, who is 

I to be seen next door for twenty centimes, to- 
gether with the port of Niagara, the sultan of 

[ Turkey and his favorite sultana, and Robert 
Houdin at home en famille. Here at least is 
no deception. The singing-bird comes out of 

; its snuff-box ^nd squeaks and wags its tail, and 
wrings its own neck in the most alarming fash- 
ion. The sultan of Turkey carefully rolls his 
eyes with a repugnant stare, which now rests 
upon his favorite sultana, now upon the alarmed 
spectators. All the ladies of the harem squat 
muslin-legged upon cushions round about him. 

I The favorite fans herself spasmodically ; while 
in the next compartment Robert Houdin, in 
majestic robes of black velvet and a sugar-cone 
hat, is playing thimblerig, surrounded by his 
numerous family. One spectatrix of about six 
years old, who is not afraid of turkey-cocks, is 
yet not quite certain that she derives pleasure 
from the entertainment ; for, besides the glance 
of the sultan's eye, and the magic flow of Hou- 
din's mystic robes, the terrific waves of green 
calico in the port of Niagara have to be en- 
countered. There are but three, but then they 
.ippear to be of enormous size and fury. A 
ship rests upon the crest of each one of them, 
and remains in that precarious position not- 
withstanding the stress of weather and the im- 
minent dangers to which navigation must be 
exposed in that little-known part of the world. 

! The raging of the storm had not abated when 



MAKING MERRY, 



329 



we left the tent. As we escaped, we heard the 
exhibitor loudly calling upon the crowds out- 
side to seize the auspicious moment, and not to 
forego tlkeir chance of admission. Tlie mecha- 
nician has a rival opposite, who exhibits attract- 
ive sketches of all the celebrated crimes of the 
last tifty years. To judge from a hasty glance, 
murderers are invariably dressed in tights, top- 
boots, velvet caps, and elegantly floating feath- 
ers. This is a thing to be remembered, that 
such persons may be avoided in future.. All 
this time the merry-go-rounds are twirling 
round and round, and we tear ourselves away 
from the dark exciting scenes of bloodshed to 
watch a little fat baby sitting quite happy and 
alone in its little flying carriage, a small ragged 
boy clinging to a horse, and some young ama- 
zons, who cast triumphant glances in our direc- 
tion ; the organ strikes up a military tune, and 
away they all go flying, men, women, children, 
one after another in tlie race. 

There is something very cheering and in- 
spiriting in all this. The people are lively, but 
not too loud ; there is more vivacity, but more 
gentleness too, than there would be among our 
people at home. One's heart aches a little as 
one thinks of one's own fellow-countrymen, pa- 
tient and dull, and strong and clumsy, and wea- 
ry, not able to rest content with light passing 
interests, with half-happiness with small things, 
but hurrying up in wistful crowds with a vio- 
lence of eft'ort, an earnestness in their amuse- 
ments even, that seems to carry them almost 
beyond bounds when tliey arc once let free. 
One is always being told that nations are like 
individuals, and we all have to learn in our 
lives how to be happy with trifles, how to put 
away care in the passing sunshine of the mo- 
ment, and to find pleasure even in the bright 
colors of a bubble. 

If the sight was pretty in the daj-time, it was 
prettier still at night. Madame de V. and her 
husband M. de V., Winifred and I, left the old 
castle about nine o'clock. It was all lighted 
up, turret windows and arched gate-ways ; and 
from outside we could see the elders of the party 
sitting in the gallery in their quiet lamp-shine. 
It was pleasant to hurry down through the rus- 
tling woods and dark avenues, with the crisp 
leaves under foot, and the great stars blazing 
over the wide countiy. At the foot of the steep 
ascent and the avenue are great iron gates where 
the carriage was standing. All along the road 
we passed dusky forms hastening in one direc- 
tion. The moon looked as if it was going to 
fall into the river and be extinguished with a 
great splutter ; the wain travelled over the hills, 
the familinr triangles and figures blazed and 
hung in the sky. When we reached the island 
we found other illuminations : bright little ar- 
cades of fire were shining among the dark trees, 
and reflected in the water; and all the little 
gambling booths were lighted up in a simple 
fashion with candle-ends. 

These games of skill are not very complicated. 
One energetic little man's whole stock-in-trade 



was an india-rubber tube, a halfpenny, and a 
soup-plate. The object of the game was to try 
and knock the tube and the sou together out of 
the soup-plate. He could do it, because he 
passed his life in practising his art ; but none 
of the by-standers succeeded, and the professor 
always pocketed the halfpenny. Another ex- 
citing game was throwing a ball through a round 
hole lighted up by a candle. 

The lady to whom the establishment belonged 
counted up the failures and payments with great 
rapidity: " Un et deux et quatre font onze ; et 
trois et deux font vingt-deux, et six et trois, 
trente-cinq," and so on with surprising aplomb 
and inaccuracy. Instead of scolding her, M. 
de V. good-naturedly nodded his head and said, 
" Allez toujours, madame, ne vous gC'nez pas ;" 
at which madame herself begins to scold, and 
gets very red in the face, and vehement and an- 
gry. So we leave her to her arithmetic, and go on 
past the little brawling shops where customers 
are chaffering — (we saw one priest buying quan- 
tities of gingerbread) — and people with white 
caps and bright dark eyes keeping watch over 
their wares. Crockery twinkles, little gilt or- 
naments shine and flicker in abundance, lotte- 
ries whizz and whirl, some of the prizes are of 
the most remarkable description, but the trump- 
et calls and the rappel is sounded, and we all 
hasten with the crowd to the central I'lace, where 
some one is alternately discoursing and playing 
on the drum. 

"Venez, venez, messieurs et dames, venez 
voir la Jeune Sauvage, qui mange de la viande 
TOUTE CRUE," roars the proprietor of the booth. 
She is a native of those distant countries where 
the inhabitants nourish themselves upon tlie 
unfortunate crews of the vessels which are wreck- 
ed upon their coast. This woman is in noways 
related to the man you beheld last year. He 
was dangerous and was destroyed by order of 
the Government. She can only speak her own 
language. Walk in, walk in, " et vous ser.';.-z 
r-r-re'compense' de votre peine." 

So we walk in, much interested by the descrip- 
tion, and behold the appalling spectacle of a be- 
ing whose name appears to be Juana, gam- 
bading behind the bars of a dark cage, grinning 
at us, and gnashing its teeth. Its face is paint- 
ed of the approved cannibal brown : it occasion- 
ally shakes a great black woolly wig, which fills 
us with horror. 

"Abawabal" Juana bounds with delight, 
recognizes the melodious language of her native 
isles ; suddenly she stops, stares, with both hands 
eagerly outstretched. An extremely small and 
dirty-looking piece of meat is now produced out 
of the exhibitor's pocket. He carefully cuts oft" 
a minute portion with & pair of scissors. Juana 
glares at the delicious morsel, and then sudden- 
ly seizes it through the bars, and thrusts it into 
her mouth. "Ah, see how savage she is," 
says the man in the blouse. "Nous allons 
maintenant lui pre'parer de la salade a la mode 
de son pays." Some black stuft'is then set fire 
to with a candle, which also goes into Juana's 



330 



MAKING MERKY. 



mouth. It seems that in her country the. sav- 
ages instantly expectorate their nourishment ; 
and Juana accordingly deposits hers in a corner 
of the cage, dancing with rapture the whole 
time. 

A demoiselle de viwjt-deux ans now comes for- 
ward. The "administration," as the exhibitor 
calls himself, selects M. de V. and requests him 
to weigh the little dwarf, and to observe that 
she docs not exceed two feet in stature nor ten 
pounds avoirdupois in weight. He then an- 
nounces that the young lady will dance a little 
waltz sans musique, upon which she instantly 
twirls rapidly round two or three times. Her 
friend then begs to remark that she depends en- 
tirely upon the generosity of the public, " rCetant 
nullement payee par V administration .'" 

Poor little dwarf! There was something af- 
fecting in the small, melancholy company. 
The administration looked very pale and Iiun- 
gry. Juana's life in the cage must have been 
somewhat monotonous. It seemed a weary way 
of gaining a livelihood. We hoped that their 
daily bread was not raw meat only, nor such 
very uninviting salad. 

A great booth had been erected next door. 
All the simple country-folks had been gazing 
with delight at the glare and the tinsel on the 
coats of the pages and actors. We went up 
with the crowd. " Quand on est marie' on finit 
toujours par ceder," one man cried, appealing 
to us, wlien his wife insisted upon taking a place 
he had objected to. A melancholy, well-bred 
actor, in red silk, with a quiet humorous man- 
ner, now came on before the curtain, and said 
things which made the audience laugh, but 
which it was impossible for our stranger ears to 
follow. Every thing he said was witty, M. de V. 
told me ; and all he did was well done. He 
had a quiet nonchalant way : he put one in mind 
of Marielle, in George Sand's charming Theatre 
de Nohant, of Wilhelm Mcister among the play- 
ers. The entertainment turned out to be tah- 
leaux-vivants, behind a gauze curtain, on a re- 
volving stage. It put one in mind of the " Pil- 
grim's Progress " and the sights that Christian 
saw. There was the story of Cain and Abel ; 
there was the history of Joan of Arc ; and be- 
sides these there were things which seemed so 
terrible to English eyes that I can not write of 
them at length. And yet it is not so long ago 
since miracle-plays were performed. Every 
day we look unmoved upon pictures and paint- 
ings of sacred subjects ; we listen to descriptions 
and allusions which seem to approach with far 
less effort, with far more familiarity, towards 
awful mysteries. To me there did not even 
seem any great want of reverence, though I was 
frightened and taken by Surprise. They had 
chosen two of Rubens's well-known pictures for 
imitation ; there was not a sound in the crowd- 
ed booth when the curtain drew up for an in- 
stant, and then fell again almost immediately. 
The figures in this miracle-play were quite mo- 
tionless. I have rarely seen nobler-looking peo- 
ple than the two chief performers. They en- 



acted their parts with perfect gravity and harmo- 
ny of sentiment. Both the man and the woman 
were tall, majestic, fair-haired, with a noble 
outline of form and feature, and a simpleness 
which was really grand and remarkable. 

As Joan of Arc, this tall, straight, sorrow- 
ful-looking young woman, with all her fair 
hair falling about her shoulders, and her beau- 
tiful up-turned face, seemed the very personi- 
fication of sweetness and valiance and misfor- 
tune. . 

It is only in Brittany that such noble types 
are found, our friends told us ; but they also 
added, that though nothing could have been 
better and more decorous than the performance 
of these principal actors, yet before the curtain 
drew up, allusions were made which would have 
been far better avoided. Baroness Tautphreus 
has admirably described these miracle-plays in 
the Tyrol, which are looked upon in the light 
of religious ceremonies almost, and which must 
be less objectionable than these representations so 
near home. And yet, where no harm is intend- 
ed, where none is understood, where, like chil- 
dren, the troops of simple country-folks come 
pouring in, quiet their laughter in a moment, 
say it is la religion, sit silent and hushed for a 
minute, until the curtain falls, and then pour 
out into the night, where the stars are shining, 
and the lamps flaring, and where, like children, 
they begin to laugh and talk again in the sud- 
den glare and glitter — one can not say how far 
all this is wrong or right. It does not strike one 
as it would in England, where feelings are more 
complex, faith less simple and unreasoning, and 
the natures of men more intricate and rough 
and dangerous to deal with. 

The ball was a very pretty sight. There 
were quantities of lamps and festoons hanging 
round, a great boarded dancing-place, with an 
arched colonnade outside it for the spectators 
who walked about upon the dried turf. Then 
came an inner row of benches for the chaperons, 
who sat round like real ones at a London ball, 
only they were little old peasant-women in their 
tight white caps, with their little shawls pinned 
across their shoulders, and they were holding 
other little shawls for their daughters when they 
should return to them. The middle part was 
crowded with dancers. The musicians were 
scraping away from a flowery bower. It was a 
pretty, pleasant, funny sight : glissades, galop- 
ades, gambades, like Juana's. Sometimes a 
good old couple would stand up and foot it with 
great intrepidity. One little wiry brown old 
woman with her husband in his high-shouldered 
coat, were hopping opposite to one another like 
a pair of lively old sparrows. As the night 
wears on, the excitement grows: the music 
plays faster and more gayly, the steps increase 
in rapidity, and they begin to skip and to bound, 
with immense sprightliness and variety. Tlic 
ladies grin reprovingly at their partners, but at 
their smiles the gentlemen's spirits only seem to 
leap like fire when a little water is thrown upon 
it. There is one delightful little man with an 



MAKING MERRY. 



331 



immense tall partner, and a very tall hat with a 
curly rim ; either of them would have seemed 
quite sufficient to weigh him down, but he is 
equal to the occasion. His evolutions and rev- 
olutions, his inflections and ascensions, and 
flights and inspirations, are something quite 
wonderful. Retreats, advances, salutations, 
clapping of hands^ — one does not know which 
to admire most. His lady joins in with great 
spirit. Their vis-a-vis try in vain to surpass 
them. The gay refrain of the waltz echoes, 
and the dancers seem to sway with the tune ; 
the cliaperons nod their heads, and look on with 
smiling approbation. At last the dance comes 
to an end, tlie young iadies return to their 
mammas, but carefully lift up their dresses be- 
fore tbey sit down. • 

We see the little man with the tall hat walk- 
ing off with his partner to treat her to ginger- 
bread outside ; they seem conscious of a tri- 
um]3h, and some of the lookei's-on shake their 
heads, laughing as they march past. One or 
two ladies who have the gift of the dance jerk 
with peculiar adeptness ; but these are far less 
interesting and more sophisticated than the sim- 
ple peasant-women delightedly jumping, and 
bobbing, and flouncing, or rolling like the 



friendly teetotums of one's youth. Thei-e is 
scarcely a pretty face in the whole room. They 
are "gentilles," that is the most that can be 
said for them. Their hair is smartly dressed, 
parted, and twisted up tight and spruce. Most 
of them have their petticoats neatly looped up 
over tidy brodequins, quite different from the 
splay, web-shaped chaussure of the inhabitants 
of our native isles. 

The lamps were beginning to go out and to 
splutter when we came away, only the stars 
seemed brighter than ever in the dark sky, and 
almost starting from their places. The moon 
had not set, and we climbed the hill and came 
out from the avenue of lime-trees and nut-trees 
into a great calm sea of moonshine rippling over 
the old towers and pointed roofs. It was late, 
and every one was gone to bed. Only one red 
lamp was left burning for us when we returned. 
But until the early morning I heard the carts roll- 
ing homeward with their weary, happy burdens, 
and the distant voices chanting cheerily through 
the silence of the night. They rolled through 
the darkness to their peaceful villages all round 
in the valleys and among the hills ; and this 
distant, odd, pleasant music only ceased with 
the dawn. 



SOLA 



SOLA. 



"Where are the great whom thou wouldst wish to praise thee? 
Where are the pure whom thou wouldst choose to love thee ? 
Wliere are the brave to stand supreme above thee, 
Whose high commands would cheer, whose chiding raise thee ? 
Seek, seeker, in thyself, submit to find 
In the stones bread, and life in the blank mind." 



Once two hundred years ago, or more, in an 
old Italian city where the workers still knead 
their clay in the sun and set it drying along the 
walls of tlie deserted streets, some workpian de- 
signed an open dish. It may have been meant 
as a gift for a betrothed maiden ; it may have 
been ordered by a fanciful customer. There 
was a rough garland of citrons and green leaves 
all round about the edge, and then came a cir- 
clet of oranges, and then, in the centre of the 
platter, two clasped right hands and a scroll 
upon which "Sola '' was written. The disli was 
old and chipped, the varnish was covered with 
a fine network of hair-like cracks ; but neither 
time, nor cracks, nor infidelity could unclasp 
the two hands in the centre, firmly grasping each 
other through the long ages. Strangers speak- 
ing a different tongue still guessed that " Sola" 
meant the only one — a life's fidelity ; for there 
is a silent language belonging to no particular 
time, or age, or place,, which all sorts of people 
can understand. 

I do not know how the plate had come to be 
one of the ornaments of the china cupboard in 
the morning-room at Harpington Hall. There 
it stood on the faded old shelf in the old gray 
room, looking eastward ; with the spindle-leg- 
■ ged chairs standing against the panels, the faded 
Turkey rug before the fireplace, the two deep 
window-sills where Felicia used to sit a bloom- 
ing little girl in the midst of these ancient ap- 
purtenances. One almost wondered where the 
child found her youth, her bright colors, her gay 
spirits ; she was like a little Phoenix rising out 
of the ashes at Harpington. The old Hall was 
haunted by ashes and dust and rats ; by all 
sorts of ghosts, and sad memories of the past. 
The poor old owner's dead children's pictures 
hung in the mother's dressing-room ; Mr. Mar- 
low's gun was slung up in the dining-room ; 
the stables were empty ; the state-rooms were 
closed. Sometimes if people asked her to show 
them over the house, Mrs. Marlow would take 



them quickly round from one great wooden room 
to another, and perhaps stop for an instant at 
the china cupboard, and point out the plate as a 
quaint old piece of Italian ware, and then shut 
the glasg doors quickly. She had a nervous, 
hasty manner, and never seemed to be quite in 
the same mind as other people ; but in a world 
of her own and her husband's. And Mr. Mar- 
low did not certainly care either for cracked 
china or sentiment ; it was only Felicii^j the 
granddaughter, who had sometimes wondered 
what it all meant as she looked at the lemon 
wreath and the grasping fingers. " Sola," 
clasped hands — it all seemed very meaningless 
to her until one day, when her eyes were open- 
ed, and she understood once for all. 

When Felicia was fifteen she was told by her 
grand-parents that she was engaged to her cous- 
in, James Marlow, a gentle, good-humored little 
fellow, who was to be master after the old 
Squire's death. The old Squire made some 
broad jokes on the occasion ; Mrs. Marlow treat- 
ed the business in a very dry, off- hand way. 
James took it as a matter of course, and went 
back to college, and Felicia remained at the 
Hall. 

The way of lif6 in the old house was a close 
and narrow way, not leading to salvation, though 
year by year Mr. Marlow added more and more 
to his store, and counted up with satisfaction 
various items of moth and dust. 

These were largely eked out by his own and 
his household's discomfort ; Felicia's little shoes 
were rubbed out at the toes. Mrs. Marlow's 
Sunday dress was shining with age, but the five 
guineas a new one might cost were safe in the 
bank. Loneliness, stinginess, self-denial, and 
denials of every sort, had added to a moderate 
fortune until it was now a large one. That 
trembling, bandy-legged old fellow, with his 
gaiters and his felt hat, did not look much like 
a speculator, but such he had been, in fact. He 
was sly, he was dull, he had been lucky. His 
wife had sympathized in his ventures, and the 
narrow economies of the household had been 



23G 



SOLA. 



begun by licr years ago. iCow Mr. Marlow 
was old and timid, and afraid of loss. lie spec- 
ulated no more, but still, from habit, the two 
ground down life to its narrowest compass. 
Such people would like to prevent the sun from 
rising; so early for fear of wasting its heat ; they 
Mould only have leaves on the alternate branch- 
es of the trees, or keep the autumnal sprays over 
for another year. But they could not prevent 
nature from being bountiful, and lovely, and 
■wasteful, and from flooding Felicia's life with 
youth and wild girlish spirits, with sunshine, 
with full fresh country winds and sweet rural 
sights, to all of which she turned more readily 
than to the house-stinting and keeping her 
grandmother tried to teach her. All tiie sum- 
mer-time she was happy, wandering about the 
deserted gardens, where the straggling flower- 
beds travelled over the ill-kept lawns ; and the 
great trees gave shade upon the grasses and the 
laurels. The little chestnut-trees in the wood, 
where the birds hid their nests, rustled and trem- 
bled ; now and then dividing their close branch- 
es to give a sight of the tranquil furrows in the 
spreading fields beyond, where the great elms 
were sailing like ships at sea 

The house, with its high sloping roof, stood 
on a hill, and might be seen for miles. From 
the front blistered door, with its broken steps, 
an avenue ran down to the road. There was 
an ^Id gateway, of which tlie iron doors stood 
always open. The ivy had crept up in slender 
sprays, covering the hinges, and Iiiding the 
brickwork, and wreathing over the stone balls 
at either side of the entrance. One day, Fe- 
licia, picking periwinkles in the avenue, tried to 
imagine a vision of herself at some future day, 
as a bride, passing through the gate, on her way 
to the little cliurch close by. Somehow, in this 
fancy of Felicia's, she was the bride, scarcely 
changed, excejit that her stuff gown was altered 
to shining satin ; but poor James was strangely 
transformed and metamorphosed. He was a 
great deal older, taller ; he had broad shoulders, 
and a set straight figure in this representation ; 
he had a fiery, quick, scornful sort of way, quite 
unlike his usual gentle manner. The fiery man- 
ner softened in the vision when the bridegroom 
turned to his bride. He was holding her hand 
close in his. What was it he whispered ? some- 
thing out of the marriage service: "To thee 
only," "Sola!" Wasit James's voice ? It was 
certainly James's voice that Felicia heard in the 
avenue calling her, "Felicia! Felicia!" 

Felicia was seventeen by this time. She had 
been engaged two years. She started and blush- 
ed. She knew she ought not to wish James to 
be different from what he was. She jumped up 
hastily from the pile of stones and periwinkles 
upon which she had been kneeling, dreaming her 
little love-dream, with her head bent over the 
flowers. She heard voices. A great dog came 
running down the avenue, and jumped upon her 
faded gown ; and James, no taller, no more mys- 
terious or romantic-looking than usual, followed 
with his grandmother, looking for her down the 



avenue, to say good-bye. "Felicia," said the 
young fellow, "why did you run away? It is 
time for me to be off. Good-bye, dear ; take 
care of yourself." 

"Good-bye, dear James," said Felicia, kissing 
his cheek. "It is you Avho must take care of 
yourself; and mind you wear the comforter I 
knitted you." 

j "James" — this was the old grandfather on 
the house-step — "you will miss the train." 

I " Here I am," cried James, kissing both his 
grandmother and Felicia, and hurrying off. 
Only he stopped at the foot of the steps to look 
a good-bye and to take breath. *' London — 10th 
— don't forget," he cried. 

Some people said that James, who was of a 
delicate stock, was ailing for want of cave and 
of necessary comforts beyond the bare allowance 
his grandfather made him. He never complain- 

1 ed, and I am sure it never occurred to Felicia to 
complain for him. She believed her grand- 
mother, -who assured her that the doctor was 

I mistaken in ordering another climate — what 
air was so good as Ilarpington ? Felicia had 
thriven upon it, and James could come home 
from college whenever he felt inclined. He 
was making but a poor thing of his career there. 
The old lady spoke a little bitterly. Felicia was 
sorry. She herself sometimes felt angry with 
her cousin for the way in which he submitted to 
the tyrannical rule of the old people. Felicia 
had been so little away from home that she had 
no standard by which to measure its ways. 
She did not care about a brilliant career in the 
world. She scarcely knew what it meant; but 
she could not but feel a secret vexation when she 
saw how poor Jim was a cypher in the deter- 
mined old hands that ruled both their destinies. 
Felicia, who was wayward and impetuous, some- 
times revolted against the discipline in which 
she was kept ; the young fellow never did. It 
did not much matter whether the children re- 
volted or not, for the grim old couple were not 
to be stirred from their strange fixed ways by all 
Felicia's reproaches and girlish demands. The 
old lady was not even angry ; she had taken her 
as a child, and brought her up with a vigorous 
rule, and it was not a quick passionate creature 
like Felicia who could move that rugged rock. 
In summer Felicia laid up her store of youth 
d brightness; but the winters were long and 



dreary. Poor Felicia ! How the cold blasts 
used to pinch and bite her. Her somewhat 
languid circulation seemed stopped and frozen 
by the wooden echoes of those long bare pas- 
sages at Harpington. There was a window 
looking into a court past which she used to run, 
giving a wistful glance at the warm-lighted 
kitchen-window, looking out upon moonlight in 
winter. The kitchen was the only really com- 
fortable corner in the house— long wooden pas- 
sages, stone stairs, up which winds blew shrilly. 
Some old people do not feel the cold, and Mrs. 
Marlow was one of them. " Shivering again. 
Fay ?" It was absurd tliat Felicia should shiver 
when there was a fire in the dining-room. 



SOLA. 



337 



This old house seemed, like its owners, in 
some fashion dreary, yet capable of better things 
— of warmth, and comfort, and brightness, too ; 
a stately old place, with all that was wanting for 
a generous life, and yet, through some curious 
whim of chance, all shabby, and closed, and 
narrow. Jim and Felicia in some measure be- 
longed to tlie sad past and were expected to 
keep up its traditions. He was a son's son, and 
she a younger daughter's daughter. The pic- 
tures of the dead children were hanging careful- 
ly guarded in an inner closet ; no new interests 
were admitted. The doors opened not to the 
living joys or interests of others, but to calcula- 
tions of interest, and money-getting, and money- 
saving, and to the remembrances of a few dead 
people. It was for this reason Felicia was to 
marry Jim ; for this, and also because old Mar- 
low hated strangers, and liked his own way. 
One of the young people was indifferent on the 
subject. This was Felicia, who told James 
what her grandmother had told her. James, 
who had seen more of the world, looked at her 
earnestly and curiously for a minute. 

"You must think of it, dear," he said. 



II. 

Felicia, being now solemnly engaged to be 
married, had settled that it was time they should 
give up keeping rabbits. It seemed a pursuit 
scarcely consistent with the dignity of a young 
betrothed couple ; and yet from day to day she 
put off the execution of this stern decree. It 
was not to be any very tragical transaction, for 
rabbit-pie, which the Squire affectioned, was a 
horror and an abomination in Felicia's eyes. 
Jim had made a private arrangement with a lit- 
tle gardener's boy, who consented, after some 
bargaining, to accept the unconscious creatures, 
upon payment of twopence apiece from James. 
The gardener's boy did not make an unfair bar- 
gain : it is the usual charge for giving away rab- 
bits. But besides the twopences, there was also 
the pang of separation. It must be confessed 
tiiat Felicia was the most to be pitied on this oc- 
casion. Tiie rabbits went on nibbling their sal- 
ad-leaves to the last moment, nibbling and rel- 
ishing up to the very edge of the stalk. 

"Why don't you keep them?" said James, 
seeing the girl's eyes full of tears. 

" No, I don't want them any more," says Fe- 
licia. " Good-bye, Puck ; good-bye, Cobweb ; 
good-bye. Mustard ; and she stroked the stupid 
sleek ears, and laid her soft check upon them, 
and kissed them with an affection that was 
scarcely requited. 

It was some joke of her grandfather's which 
had determined Felicia to part from her favor- 
ites. She had a morbid horror of being laugh- 
ed at. I think she was deficient in humor, and 
people who are wanting in fun, as a rule, are 
those who can least bear being laughed at. 
James's was a different nature. He used to 
Y 



smile at life. It had been a hard one for him 
on the whole. Weak health, small powers of 
application, failure, a generous and tender heart, 
and a narrow meed of love in return. All this 
did not go to make his fate a very bright one. 
Little Jim Marlow was a fivtalist in his way : he 
resigned himself to his narrow destiny. As for 
Felicia, that was a hope too bright for him to 
reckon on ; he never expected to win his cous- 
in's affections, though he did not s.ay no when 
Felicia came to him that day, saying, " Jim, is 
it true we are to be engaged ?" He loved her 
so truly that he would have almost consented to 
give her up if he had felt convinced it would 
be for her welfare. His nature was so gentle 
and peaceful, that no thought of himself or of 
his rights ever seemed to trouble him. Some 
people worry over their own interests, but he let 
them alone. Perhaps he had a secret presenti- 
ment tliat there were not many more for him. 
Reproofs which would have been an indignity 
almost if they had carried any bitterness with 
them, he scarcely noticed. He went his own 
way : he dreamt over his books : Felicia was 
tlie one person he loved best in the world, and 
in her service he would wake up from his dream 
of peace to face the troubled realities of life ; or 
perhaps I should say from his realities of peace 
to fiace the troubled dreams of life ; but that is 
the problem. 

" I don't know what you will do without your 
rabbits, Felicia," said Jim, feeling that this 
moment had now come for a little good ad- 
vice. " You will have to take to reading, or mu- 
sic." 

" Jim," said Felicia, suddenly turning round, 
and opening her gray penetrating eyes, "do 
you know any other young ladies besides me?" 

Her cousin blushed up. "I know one or 
two," he said. 

"What are they like?" says Felicia, looking 
quickly at him, and then again stroking her rab- 
bit. " I suppose they all talk French and play 
the piano ?" 

" Some of them do," said Jim. "Felicia, I 
wish you knew something of music." 

" I am very glad I don't," says Felicia, chang- 
ing color. " It's too much trouble." 

" I know a Miss Flower who plays all sorts of 
charming old tunes," said James. "I should 
like you to know her ; she does not live very far 
from this : though, after all, perhaps you would 
not like her." 

"I hate young ladies," said Felicia. "They 
are all so silly." 

"Only now and then," said James, smiling. 

"Is Miss Flower silly?" says Felicia. "I 
think you are very unkind;" and her gray eyes 
circled deeper, and she drew lierself up slight, 
white, against the old stable-door. 

"Miss Flower may be silly for all I know," 
said James. " I hope not, for I think some day 
she will marry a friend of mine — Baxter — you 
know. She is his cousin, she lives with his 
aunt and his little girl, and he seems very — " 

" Shut the door," says Felicia, still very cross. 



SOLA. 



"I hear grandpapa's voice ; lie will be laughing 
at ray rabbits again." 

So James shut the door as he was bid, and 
the two stood waiting silent in the stable dark- 
ness, with the great lines of brightness shining 
through the joints of the planking, and red 
lights Avhere the knots were in the rough boards 
against the windows, while the rabbits went on 
nibbling and crunching. The empty stalls 
gloomed dark and mysterious. The two stood 
silent, waiting for the voices to pass. 1 

"There, you can see the boundary from! 
here," old Marlow was saying, outside. " You 
can think my offer over. Captain, and let me 
hear from you in a day or two. It will make a 
pretty addition to the farm, whoever buys it." 

" I have almost determined upon buying the 
farm," said the other. 

"It's Baxter," whispered James. 

"Hush!" said Felicia. 

The voice went on. " This is rather a fancy 
price for the field, Mr. Marlow, and I am afraid 
I must give up thinking of it. I will speak to 
my lawyer, and — " 

" Why did you come to me if you didn't know 
your own mind?" growled old Marlow. "I 
thought you wanted the field as a favor. Who 
told you I wanted to sell it?" 

" I was told }-ou were thinking of selling it," 
said Baxter; "and I asked your grandson if 
you would give a neighbor the refusal." 

" I thought so," says the old man, more and 
more angry. " James is a meddlesome block- 
head, and it is all along of such chattering fools 
as him people think my land is going about beg- 
ging, d him ; I believe he does it on pur- 
pose." 

James turned away, as this growl reached the 
two young folks in tlie stable. There was a 
sort of low angry sound from Felicia, then a 
silence, then — "Why, why don't you go and 
contradict him?" cried the girl, giving her 
cousin a push. " Go." 

James hung back. "What is the good?" 
he said with a sigh. " He is an old man. I 
hate a scene." 

But if James hated a scene, it was not so with 
Felicia. There was something new stirring 
in her nature that seemed to cry out for a vent 
for action, for spectators. .Baxter should not 
hear James insulted. " I am not afraid," said 
Miss Marlow magnificently ; and before James 
could stop her, she had sprung to the great sta- 
ble-door, flung it wide open, and was standing 
outside in a blaze of sunshine, confronting the 
two — the old grandfather and Captain Baxter, 
whose dark face didn't show much of the sur- 
prise he felt. Forthat the old stable-doorshould 
fly open before them, and an avenging goddess 
should appear sudden, overwhelming, breathing 
vengeance and retribution, was certainly the last 
thing the angry old schemer, or the disappoint- 
ed neighbor, had in their minds. Felicia's eyes 
were radiating, her lips pouting, her cheeks bril- 
liantly flushed. She had never looked more 
beautiful — certainly never so angry. "How 



dare you say such things of poor Jim, grand- 
papa? It is cruel of you and unjust; yes, and 
you know it. I told Captain Baxter about the 
field." 

"Oh, listening!" says grandpapa, quite un- 
moved; "and James too. Come out of your 
hiding, James, and you" (to Felicia) "go back 
to your grandmamma." 

" You know it is not James who chatters," 
persists Felicia, stamping; but her courage be- 
gins to fail a little at the two steady shaggy old 
eyes fixed upon her. As for the stranger, she 
indefinitely feels that there is protection in that 
straight, dark-looking figure now greeting her 
cousin. But she scarcely realizes this. Some 
sudden storm had been stirred ; some sudden 
flame had burnt up fiercely, only to go out as 
such flames do after a minute's flashing and 
flaring. 

" Do you hear me, Fay ?" says Mr. Marlow ; 
"go up to your grandmother. I'm busy with 
the Captain, and don't want you here." 

"But you have been unjust," cries Felicia, 
worked up, more and more passionately. "I 
will not have James spoken of as you have 
done." 

"Do you hear me or not?" roars old Mar- 
low; and then James came forward and pulled 
Felicia's arm through his and led her oft' with- 
out a look or a word at the angry old man. 
Baxter looked after the two as they walked 
away. At first Felicia clung to her cousin, 
trembling and sobbing ; then in a moment she 
pushed him violently away, then she set off" run- 
ning ; and when she ran poor James could not 
follow her, for his breath failed, his heart beat so 
that he could not hear or see ; he sat down upon 
the steps of the house, and there Baxter found 
him a few minutes after, almost fainting and ut- 
terly exhausted by the morning's work. 



HI. 

Felicia, having pulled her arm away from 
her cousin, ran' back to the house in a troubled, 
furious, tearful mood. She was indignant wiih 
her grandfather, angry with herself; for James 
she was feeling something almost like scornful 
pity. Why had he been so silent ?— why did he 
allow that intemperate old man to speak of him 
in such a way ? She had seen Captain Baxter 
give one glance at James and then at her grand- 
fiUher. Why did not Jim do something, instead 
of putting down a basket of lettuces and offering 
her his arm ? He was more like a rabbit him- 
self than a man. Oh, why was she not a man 
herself? as she stamped in a fury. 

"Where is James?" said her grandmother, 
meeting the girl in the hall. 

"I don't know; how should I?" said Feli- 
cia, and she passed on, flitting from room to 
room, till she found herself at the end of the 
house in a certain play-room which she consid- 
cred her own. Here she began to cry afresh ; 



SOLA. 



3;' a 



then she dried her tears ; then Felicia, defiant, 
ran to an old piano, and began strumming nois- 
ily on the keys. " Miss Flower, Miss Flower," 
she sang, banging with all her might, and thump- 
ing. 

And meanwhile, outside in the hot garden, 
poor Jim was still struggling and panting for 
breath. When he heard a quick foot upon the 
gravel, the sound turned him faint and sick with 
apprehension. He thought it was his grandfa- 
ther, and, in his present state, every thing seem- 
ed to him terrible. But it was only Baxter who, 
black as his face was, and fierce of aspect, sym- 
pathized with any thing that was in want of 
help, or that was weak, or in pain. He stopped 
short, sat down on the stone step beside his 
friend, and asked him if he was ill ? 

"111!" gasped Jim, "no — that is — I — I'm 
used to it. Is Felicia — " 

"Felicia! — is your cousin coming back?" 
said Baxter, guessing more than poor Jim meant 
to reveal. 

" If she would come — she would know — " 
said the young man, panting still. 

"I will fetch some one," said Baxter, really 
frightened ; and he hurried up the steps and 
along the stone terraces, and hearing a sound of 
noisy music coming through an open window, 
he stooped under the creepers that were hanging 
over it and went in. He only came into an 
empty little passage-room ; but from a door he 
heard loudly now the jangle of some old cracked 
piano, and he knocked impatiently, and entered 
without waiting for an answer. 

Felicia was still playing ; for, notwithstand- 
ing her protest, she could play a little, and she 
was strumming at some old-fashioned jig, I think 
she called it, which had grown out of the noise. 
Slie was standing, and playing, and bending over 
the music. The room was not a sitting-room, 
but some sort of lumber-place such as people, 
who live in big old houses, can afford to spare 
to old boxes and scraps and odds and ends of 
furniture, and the discarded piano had been put 
away there among the lumber. The room was 
dark : great green wreaths were hanging before 
the windows. There were no other blinds, and 
none others were wanted. There was nothing 
to shade except old boxes and fishing-rods, some 
broken chairs; a great cracked looking-glass, 
leaning against the wall, reflected the checkered 
light and the whole slim length of the musician. 
She stood in her green faded dress among the 
rakes and geranium-pots, where feeble sprigs 
were sprouting ; and, close by, was an old chest, 
upon which stood a ship full sail, and three bald- 
headed goggling dolls. Any other time Aure- 
lius might have paid some martial compliment, 
and admired the pretty girl making merry 
among the rubbish ; but he scarcely noticed her. 
It was only after he got home, in reply to the 
questions they asked him, that he seemed to see 
it all again, and remembered how she had look- 
ed, and where he had found her. Tum-tum-te- 
tiimty! clattered Felicia, stopping short as the 
door opened. She was somewhat taken aback 



when the dark lean figure came maixhing up to 
her straight and grim-looking. 

"Will you come to your cousin?" said the 
Captain, without any preamble. Her feelings 
did not require much tender handling in his es- 
timation. " He seems to me very ill. Perhaps 
you may know what to do for him." 

" 111 !" exclaimed Felicia, starting away from 
the piano, witli a slight crash among the gera- 
nium-pots. "Have you seen grandmamma? 
she always nurses him when he is ill." And she 
stooped to pick up the flower-pots, and to stick 
back the sprigs and cuttings that had fallen out 
of them. Felicia did not appear to think much 
of James's illness. 

Baxter was more and more indignant. 

"Poor fellow," said Aurelius ; " he does not 
seem to get much nursing from any body." The 
Captain was downright angry, and did not care 
who he off'ended. At home, if his little finger 
ached, aunt and cousin and attendant maids 
were in tears almost, his little daughter would 
turn pale. It was foolish, and Aurelius made 
fun of their solicitude, but how infinitely better 
than this cold-bloodedness. 

"He must have some wine," cried Felicia, 
carelessly. She did not choose to let Baxter see 
she had noticed his taunt, and she went on be- 
fore him, leading the way with a little careless 
dancing step. "Oh dear me, who has got the 
keys? Scruby, Scruby," sang the girl, and at 
her call a dilapidated-looking man put his bald 
head out of the dining-room door. "Scruby, 
Master James isn't well ; have you got any wine 
out?" 

The three-o'clock dinner-table was set, and a 
bottle with a little wine in it was put ready by 
the old Squire's seat. 

"Not that," said Scruby, feebly proceeding 
to explore various drawers and cupboards. But 
Baxter impatiently seized the bottle and poured 
its contents into a tumbler. 

"That's grandpapa's wine!" said Felicia, a 
little awe-stricken, and Scruby made a toothless 
exclamation. 

Baxter did not say a word in reply, but walk- 
ed off quickly. As he hurried along Felicia 
followed him. "I thought you cared for your 
cousin," said the Captain to the girl as she came 
up a little timidly to the place where poor James 
was lying. He was better ; the color had come 
back into his cheeks, and he was drinking tlie 
wine which Baxter had brought him. He look- 
ed up, smiled, and held out his hand to Felicia, 
and she, without speaking, held it between her 
own two soft palms as she knelt leaning against 
the stone banister of the terrace. 

So the Captain left them. He met Mrs. Mar- 
low coming out of the house with a reproof on 
her lips. 

" He should not excite himself over trifles," 
said the old lady, briskly. "I have never had 
a day's illness in my life." Mrs. Marlow seem- 
ed to think that it was her own good sense 
which had kept her well all these years. She 
did not mean to be unkind, but she never pre- 



340 



SOLA. 



tended to any thing she did not feel. It was 
her way ; she had no morbid terrors, no hidden 
pains and shrinliing nerves, wherewitli to sym- 
pathize with others. All this had died out in 
her ; nowadays no impressions reached her, 
though the old ones of fifty years before some- 
times came to life again. She loved her hus- 
band and she loved Felicia. She tolerated 
James. When her children had died, in her 
despair she had almost blamed them for their 
weakness — she had mourned them after her 
own fashion. The whole generation of sons 
and daughters and sons and daughters-in-law 
had passed away, but the tough old folks lived 
on, tending the two little orphan grandchil- 
dren. 

Here is one of them dragging himself up the 
steps with the help of the other. Felicia at 
least bears no sign of illness or premature de- 
cay. How blooming she looks as she drags Jim 
up with her arms. Mrs. Marlow thinks in her 
heart there never was a sweeter, brighter face, 
and half pities the girl linked to poor little Jim 
for life. 

As Aurelius rode off he thanked heaven that 
all women were not like those two. He had 
found it very sweet to have come back after 
years of hard work and loneliness to the tender 
solicitude of a gentle old aunt, and Lucy his 
little daughter. They were of a different type 
and order to those two women he had just left. 
Good and tender and unselfish, and living for 
others instead of existing scarce alive in that 
strange silence and exhausted atmosphere which 
oppressed him and every one else at Harping- 
ton. 

Baxter had often heard James Marlow speak 
of Felicia ; this was only the second time he 
had ever seen her. His first impression was of 
something that he never forgot — a wild, bright, 
sudden gleam. In later days he sometimes 
thought of the beautiful angry face that had 
flashed out upon them from the darkness. 
When he thought of this he melted and soft- 
ened, and by some contradiction he told him- 
self that it was a pity that such a briglit bril- 
liant flame of youth and unreserve should be 
dimmed and chilled down by rough cold blasts, 
and by time, and by indifference. But that is 
the story of many and many a beautiful flame. 
Just now, however, it was Felicia's indifference 
and not her beauty that was paramount in Bax- 
ter's mind: her indifference shocked him. He 
thought of her more than once that day. 

"Is she pretty?" asked his aunt, and Aure- 
lius paused for a minute before he answered. 

"I forget — yes, she is wonderfully pretty. 
Those may admire her who like." Poor James 
had got a bad bargain, for all her brilliant love- 
liness. Sometimes the Captain relented a lit- 
tle, and then he thought of Felicia as a thought- 
less child ; but again he would tell himself that 
she was at best but a hard-hearted little siren 
playing jigs in her beautiful golden hair, while 
her victims drowned round about her. That 
hateful tune he had heard her play kept nag- 



ging in his ears : he found himself humming 
it at night as he paced the quiet lane in front 
of the house, smoking his midnight pipe before 
going to bed, long after the other members of 
the peaceful little household retired. 



IV. 

The poor siren was also sitting up in the 
dark in her little room at that minute. The 
great hall clock had struck one, but the child 
had not gone to bed ; and yet midnight was a 
much more terrible aflair at Harpington than 
in the cottage where Captain Baxter was stay- 
ing, and where you could hear the cat purring 
in the kitchen all over the house. At Harp- 
ington far-off rats raced down the long passages. 
Far-off" creaks and starts sounded in the ears of 
startled watchers. Felicia M'as frightened, but 
she was used to being frightened. If any thing 
terrible came out of the barred door which led 
to the empty rooms she could run down the pas- 
sage screaming, and her grandmother, who rare- 
ly slept, would hear her. Boom after room, 
dark and gloomy and ghostlike, dim passages, 
staircases winding into blackness — all this was 
round about. Jim was under the roof at the 
other end of the wing, and the old people were 
sleeping in state in the great front rooms. Fe- 
licia had opened her window. She had heard 
a dog bay somewhere across the dark fields, and 
seen a star or two shine out through the dim 
veil of clouds overhead. She could not see, 
though she peered out ever so far with her two 
bright gray eyes, where the line of the fields 
met the heavens. It was all dark, and sweet, 
and dim, and fresh with that indescribable calm 
of sleeping night. The air was touched by tlie 
scent of the fresh green blades, and of the pinks 
in the kitchen-garden. Some young owls be- 
gan to hoot and whistle, but only for a little. 
Then every thing was silent again. And when 
every thing was quite silent, Felicia once more 
sat listening to a voice that began telling her 
the events of the day over and over again. 
These voices are apt to speak in the silence of 
the night, and to keep people awake. 

"I thought you might have cared a little 
more," the voice said to Felicia. 

"He thought me hard, cold, cruel," said 
Felicia to herself; and she began to remember 
liow Baxter had looked at her — just as he had 
looked at her grandfather — with a curious, hard, 
indifferent look, such as no one had ever given 
her before. Then she went over it all again 
and saw James lying straight out on the stone- 
step, and the broad shoulders of Aurelius bend- 
ing over him. She saw the orange-trees on 
tlie terrace, and her grandfather crossing by tlie 
side-walk to avoid them, and her grandmotlier 
coming out of the house. There was the little 
scene bright painted on the darkness before her. 
She was sick of it, but there it was. 

" Poor fellow, he does not seem to get much 



SOLA. 



3-H 



nursing from any one," said the voice again ; 
and then again, "I thought you might have 
cared for your cousin." 

This time the voice sounded more forgiving ; 
but no, there was the vision of the tall unre- 
lenting figure walking away without another 
word. "Why was she not angry ? Oh, he was 
right — he was right — that was why. She should 
have been more gentle with her cousin. She 
should not have pushed him from her. How 
kind he had been : yes, he was right to take 
her away when her grandfather stormed. He 
(Jim) had no strength for scenes and fights, and 
she had no strength. She only stormed and 
failed. She had never loved Jim so well as at 
that moment. Even though she had been so 
angry with him, she never before understood 
his goodness and gentleness as she did now. 
And then no one had ever told her before what 
was right : wliat she ought to feel and to do. 
Oh, if she had but one friend in the world whom 
she could trust, who would help her a little ; 
then she would know how to be good, and how 
to take care of Jim, and how to make him hap- 
py. Captain Baxter should see that she did 
care — that she was not utterly heartless. . . . 
So Felicia, sitting there, dreamt her waking 
dreams through the night. 

Poor little Jim, tossing on his bed in the gar- 
ret under the roof, did not know of Felicia's re- 
morse and love, as she sat wakeful at the foot 
of her little iron couch, and yet — this is a theo- 
ry which people may scout if they will — the un- 
conscious magnetism of her good-will reached 
him in some mysterious fashion, and by degrees 
the fever left him, and he was soothed and 
quieted and fell asleep. Felicia longed for the 
morning to come that she miglit go to him, 
comfort him, make him forgive her. Jim was 
peacefully dreaming : he thought he was eating 
his dinner oflP the old china plate in the morn- 
ing-room, and that Felicia came in and tossed 
it up in the air. 

He came down late, and breakfast was over. 
The old couple were already on their rounds ; 
but Felicia, who was sitting on the window-sill 
waiting, jumped up and ran to meet him. As 
she came up, Jim, looking into her face, saw a 
sweet troubled tender look that he had never 
seen before ; gray eyes half tearful, a trembling 
color, a quivering mouth. 

"Dearest Jim," she said, with both hands 
put out to meet his ; " forgive me, I was so 
cruel yesterday ; I have been so unhappy about 
it ;" and she held up her sweet face to be kiss- 
ed. Never in all his life before had he seen her 
look like this. It was almost more than he 
could bear. 

"Forgive, dearest Fay ! Don't talk of for- 
give," he said, putting his arm round about her, 
and leaning his head for a moment on her shoul- 
der. 

"You are still quite tired and weak; here is 
your tea and your egg," she said jumping away. 
And all breakfast-time Felicia waited on him, 
bringing him at last a bunch of ripe grapes she 



had stolen (though she did not tell him so), by 
breaking a pane of the grape-house. 

"If Captain Baxter could see us now," 
thought Felicia, "he Avould see I am sorry to 
have been heartless." 

Poor Jim ! How delicious the grapes tasted, 
how happy it made him to be a little comforted 
and loved ! He could hardly realize his own 
happiness, or believe that this was in truth his 
own Felicia. 

When Aurelius rode over that afternoon to 
see his friend he found him quite restored, 
reading in the window of the old lumber-room. 
Felicia, in her green dress, was still strumming 
on the piano. La ci darem : she was playing, 
with a great many false notes, out of an old 
music-book she had discovered in a corner. 
She shut up the piano with a bang, however, 
when Aurelius came into the room, and soon 
after disappeared, leaving the two young men 
together. 

Baxter sat on for some time talking to Jim. 
He tried to give him good advice, and tell him 
to hold his own. James, as usual, shrugged his 
shoulders, and smiled, and sighed : so long as 
he had Felicia he did not care what others said 
or did or thought of him, and so he said. Bax- 
ter did not answer, but soon after got up and 
went away. 

He was very sorry for his friend. It did not 
seem to him, for all James told him, that Felicia 
cared for him in the least. Once more he told 
himself that she was a hard-hearted, ill-temper- 
ed little creature ; and so thinking, he walked 
away, and down the old stone steps along the 
periwinkle walk leading to the road. And then 
he looked up, and saw that there was a figure 
at the gate sitting waiting on the grass-grown 
step. The figure jumped up quickly, and came 
to. meet him. A wild, nymph-like little figure, 
in her quaint green dress, with her hair flying. 
It was Felicia who had taken a great resolution. 

" I was waiting for you," she said, opening 
her gray eyes wider and wider. ' ' I have some- 
thing to say to you. I want you to listen." 
And she stood before him so that he could not 
pass. "You think me heartless," she said. 
"You think I do not care for James. You think 
I am not good enough for him. Oh, Captain 
Baxter, you are right ; that is what I wanted to 
say to you ; but, indeed, indeed I know how 
good he is, and I do love him, and do try to take 
care of him, and I can't bear that you should 
think me quite wicked and heartless." And the 
tears stood in her eyes. 

" Wicked ! heartless !" said Aurelius, feeling 
in his turn ashamed. " It is I who am wicked 
and heartless, ever to think any thing of the 
sort, and I thank you for making me know you 
as you are." And he held out his hand, and 
went away touched and melted by the girl's 
confidence. 

James, who had seen the two from his win- 
dow, came down the walk a minute later, and 
found Felicia standing quite still in the mid- 
dle of the path where Aurelius had left her. 



342 



SOLA. 



" What liave you two been talking about ?" 
Jim said. 

"Never mind," said Felicia. "Do you want 
to know ? He told me I was heartless that day 
you were so ill, and I wanted to say to him that 
i do love my friends, and am not quite without 
a heart." She said it so prettily, so shyly, so 
quickly, that Jim's vague jealousy melted away, 
and he looked down admiringly at the sweet 
bright face beside him. 

This was only a very little while before Jim 
went back to college for liis last term. Baxter 
came once or twice to see him, and then, when 
he was gone, the Captain's visits ceased. Mrs. 
Marlow gave him very plainly to understand slie 
did not care for him to come, and tlicre was 
nothing at the Hall that Baxter cared to come 
for ; not even Felicia, although he often thought 
of her in her slim green dress. 

Once or twice he met her in the lanes ; once, 
the very day he left for town, in a buttercup 
field with a great golden ball of flowers in her 
liand. That day little Lucy was with him, and 
Felicia gave the child the flowers. Little Lucy, 
who had read of princesses in fairy tales, firmly 
believed Felicia to be one of them, and talked 
of her all the way home. . Felicia was a very 
silent princess, and never spoke, but always ran 
away. 



My story, as I am telling it, seems to be a sad 
one, of which the actors themselves scarcely 
know the meaning. What does it take to make 
a tragedy ? Youth, summer days, beauty, kind 
hearts, a garden to stroll in ; on one side an 
impulsive word, perhaps a look, in which an un- 
conscious truth shines out of steadfast eyes, per- 
haps a pang of jealousy ; and then a pause or 
two, a word, a rose off a tree — that is material 
enough for Tragedy. She lays her cold hand 
upon the best, the fairest, and sweetest, and most 
innocent. For my own part, Tragedy seems 
less terrible, with her dark veil and cold, stern 
face, than Comedy in her tinsel and mask. 
Tragedy is terrible ; and as she passes, tears flow 
and cries of pain arc uttered ; but along with 
these are heroic endurance, faithfulness, self- 
denial, and tender, unflinching love, tliat her 
dark veil can not hide nor her terrors dismay, 
and she passes by, leaving a benediction beliind 
her. Flowers spring up along the road, her arid 
wastes are repeopled, the plough travels over the 
battle-fields, and the living stand faithful by the 
sacred memories of the past. 

But Comedy seems to scorn her victims. 
How can they rise again from her jibes and 
jeers ? For Comedy take middle age, take false 
sentiment, and weakness, and infidelity ; take 
small passions, unworthy objects, affectations, 
rouge-pots, calculations, the blunting influence 
of time. It makes one's heart ache to think of 
the cruel, cruel comedies of life, into which 
good people are drawn, and gentle natures, only 
to be cast out again, sullied and mortified, and 



broken-spirited and defiled. When the crisis 
comes. Comedy grinds her mad teeth and tears 
her false haii and cries and writhes, and the 
spectators laugh and shrug their shoulders ; but 
they love and pity Tragedy, as she passes along 
despairing, but simple and beautiful even in 
her woe. We pass through all these phases, 
youtli and tragedy and the comedy of middle 
life, and then, I suppose, if we are sensible and 
honest-minded people, comes the peace of age, 
and, at all events, the silence that follows all 
youth and life and age ; when at last Comedy 
shrinks away abashed and powerless. 

This silence was hanging over the old house 
at Harpington ; its unconscious inmates came 
and went as usual, sitting out in the lovely sum- 
mer sunshine, living tlie same still life. For 
the last time — it was all for the last time — and 
yet it seemed like any of the other summers that 
had flooded tlirough the old place, across the 
fields, into the remotest nooks and corners of 
the neglected gardens, shining on the high tiled 
roofs and the ancient elms and rooks. Even old 
Marlow would come out and bask in the lovely 
summer weather, conning his account books, 
and making his calculations under the trees to 
the singing of the birds. One day two butter- 
flies came flitting and bobbing alout his head. 
Felicia bui-st out laugliing at the sight. 

Jim had gone ofl", telling them to remember 
the 10th. He was to come back from Oxford 
in the beginning of July, and it had long been 
settled that Felicia and her grandmother were 
to accept an invitation they had received, and 
meet him in London, and spend ten days there, 
and buy Felicia's wedding-clothes. Mrs. Mar- 
low was to sec her doctor and the lawyer at the 
same time ; old INLirlow had desired this ar- 
rangement — I don't know in what fit of gener- 
osity — it was a whim : a sort of remembrance 
of the week he had spent in London before his 
marriage. The clothes were unnecessary, but 
he would not have to pay for them ; so he chose 
to do tlie thing handsomely for once ; and all 
this being accomplished, there would be no fur- 
ther reason for delay. Jim and Fay should 
come back and be married out of hand. It was 
also a sort of intended encouragement to Felicia, 
who certainly showed no eagerness to enter into 
matrimonial bonds; but, if going to London de- 
pended upon being married, here was Felicia as 
eager as any one to be married, for London was 
her dream, her heaven upon earth, her soul's as- 
piration. Why she should have sighed and 
longed after all these millions of brown half- 
baked bricks, piled one on the top of the other, 
I can not tell. Jim iiad sometimes told her sto- 
ries of London streets and parks, and promised 
that he would take her to see the sights. They 
were to stay with an opportune old sister of Mr. 
Marlow's, from whom a letter had come one 
j morning to every body's surprise : 

'^ Queen Square, Juno 2T. 
I " My dear Brother," wrote the old lady — 
"When I tliink liow many years we have both 



SOLA. 



343 



lived, and how many have passed since we hist 
met, and how very few more we can expect to 
be together in the world, it occurs to me to write 
to you and ask you if it is not time to let past 
things be past. This is our mother's birthday, 
and I have been thinking over old times, and I 
feel that I should much like to see you once 
more. Are you coming to town ? and if so, will 
you give me the great pleasure of receiving you, 
and come to me with your wife and your grand- 
daughter ? I hear Felicia's marriage is to take 
place before very long : and she must be doubt- 
less thinking about her trousseau. I should like 
to contribute a hundred pounds towards it, in to- 
ken of the good-will of an old maiden aunt who 
lias not quite forgotten her earlier days. She 
can expend it to the best advantage during her 
stay with me. 

"I am thinking of going abroad, so that I 
would only beg that I may soon have the pleasure 
of welcoming you in my house. With love to 
your wife, your affectionate sister, 

" Maky Anne Marlow." 

"Well," said Mrs. Marlow, as she finished, 
"Mary Anne seems to be flourishing — going 
abroad." 

"I shall answer that letter," said the Squire, 
in a determined voice. "You had better go, 
and take Fay* with you." 

"Me!" cried Mrs. Marlow. "I am not go- 
ing to leave home, Robert. I am just making 
my jam." 

"Jam !" said the Squire, " who wants jam ? 
But I tell you what, Mary Anne seems disposed 
to be liberal, and I don't see why we shouldn't 
get the benefit of our own as well as any body 
else. That house in Queen Square ought to 
have been mine at this minute." 

" Nothing will induce me to set foot in it," 
cried Mrs. Marlow, "after all that has passed. 
You can take Felicia yourself, Robert, if you 
choose to go." 

"Go! It is out of the question," said old 
Marlow. " I must look after my crops. Wliat 
should I do in London ?" said the Squire. 

As usual, the old fellow had his way in the 
end. He frowned and insisted, being determin- 
ed not to lose that chance £100. 

" Harpington, June 20. 

"My dear Sister, — I thank you for your 
letter, inviting us to your house, and alluding 
to old times. Although I am unfortunately 
prevented from accepting your invitation, my 
wife and granddaughter will avail themselves 
of your kindness, and Felicia will be glad to do 
her shopping under your auspices. 

"It is many years, as you say, since wc met, 
and we are both, doubtless, very much changed. 
Believe me, your affectionate brother, 

"R. Maklow." 

Felicia felt as if they were really going when 
she went into her grandmother's room one 
morning to find doors and cupboards wide 



open, and strange garments and relics piled on 
the floor, and on the bed, and on the window- 
sill, and Hannah Morton, the housekeeper, 
dragging in a great hair-trunk and a rope. 
The old lady was selecting from a curious 
store of wimples, and pockets, and mittens, and 
furbelows, and out of numbers of faded reticules 
and bags, the articles which she tliought neces- 
sary for her journey. Felicia's experience was 
small ; but she asked her grandmother if she 
thought so many things would be wanted for a 
ten-days' excursion. 

"Who is this, grandmamma?" cried the 
girl, holding up a black plaster silhouette. 

" Put it down, child," said Mrs. Marlow. 

She could not bear her treasures to be in- 
spected. Few old ladies like it. They store 
their keepsakes and mementos away in drawers 
and dark cupboards — cupboards fifty years old, 
drawers a lifetime deep. 

And so even these slow, still, wall-inclosed 
days at Harpington came to an end at last. 
They ended as the old trap, with its leather 
straps and chains, drove uj) to the door with 
George, the gardener, on the box, and the drag 
swinging. The carriage was at the door; tlie 
sandwiches were cut ; the old hair-box was 
corded. Felicia, who even now, within ten 
minutes of her going, expected that an earth- 
quake would come to engulf London before 
she should see it, that her grandfather would 
change his mind, or, at least, that the white 
horse would take to his lieels and run away 
down hill, began at last to believe in their go- 
ing. 

The thought of it all had been so delightful 
that the delight was almost an agony, as very 
vivid feelings must be. Felicia had been wide- 
awake all night, starting and jumping in her 
little bed, and watching the dawn spread dull 
beyond the trees (as it was spreading behind 
the chimney-pots in the dream-cify to which 
she was going). Now she stood, with her little 
brown hat tied over her hair, watching the pro- 
ceedings with incredulous eyes. The old gig, 
with its bony horse, was no miraculous appari- 
tion ; but miracles take homely shapes at times, 
and we don't always recognize them when we 
see them. The gray hair-trunk was hoisted up 
by Hannah and George, the bags were brought 
down, and then Blrs. Marlow, walking brisk 
and decided, equipped for the journey, with 
strange loopings and pinnings, with a bag and 
a country bonnet, appeared arm in arm with 
her husband. The grandfather had sometimes 
driven off for a day or two, but the grandmoth- 
er's departure was a much more seldom and 
special occurrence. So Felicia felt, as well as 
Mrs. Marlow, as she stood on the tlireshold, 
with her arm still in the old Squire's. It is 
affecting to see some leave-takings : outstretch- 
ed hands that have lost strength in each other's 
service ; eyes meeting that have seen each oth- 
er's brightness fade. I don't know if the end 
of love is a triumph or a requiem : the young 
man and woman are gone, but their t«o souls 



344 



SOLA. 



are there still in tlieir changed garments ; the 
throb of the full flooding current is over, but it 
has carried them on so far on their way. Here 
were two whose aims had not been very great, 
nor could you see in their faces the trace of 
past aspirations and high endeavor. Two 
mean worn faces looking at each other for the 
kst time with faithful eyes.* 

"Good-bye, Robert," said Mrs. Marlow, 
wistfully. " Take care of yourself. You will 
find the cellar-key on the hook in my cup- 
board." 

" Good-bye, my dear. Give my love to 
Mary Anne," says the Squire, signing to the 
man to help his mistress up. When the old 
lady was safe hoisted on the seat of the little 
carriage, once more she put out her thin hand, 
and he took it in his. " There," said he, " be 
off; don't stay beyond your time." 

"You will have to come for me," said Mrs. 
Marlow, smiling; and then Felicia jumped up 
and they drove away. Then the Squire tramp- 
ed back into the house again. How dull and 
lonely it seemed, all of a sudden. Empty 
rooms; silence. Why did he let them go? 
Confound Mary Anne and her money ! It 
was all his own doing, and he loved his own 
way, but it was dismal all the same. What 
was this? his wife come back for something. 
For an instant he had foncied her in the room. 
Marlow pulled down the blind noisily, making 
his study still darker than it was before ; then 
he pulled on his wide-awake, and trudged out 
through the stable-yard into the fields, where 
he staid till dinner-time, finding fault with 
the men for company's sake. Mrs. Marlow 
had not yet left home in spirit, though she was 
driving away through the lanes ; she was roam- 
ing through the house, and pondering on this 
plan and that for the Squire's comfort : and 
Felicia was flying ahead of gigs and railways, 
through a sort of dream landscape, all living 
and indistinct, like one of Turner's pictures. 
That was London — that dim, harmonious city ; 
and Jim was there ; and Captain Baxter, 
would he come and see them, she wondered ? 
Perhaps they might meet one day suddenly; 
and then her London heart, as she called it, 
began to throb. 



VI. 

The old house in Queen Square stood hos- 
pitably waiting for the travellers. An old but- 
ler came to the door ; an old lady, looking some- 
thing like the Squire in a bonnet, beamed down 
to meet them. Two old four-post beds were pre- 
pared for Felicia and her grandmother. There 



• " Tous Ics hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, 
bavards, hypocrites, orgiieilleux ou laches?, meprisables et 
Bensuels ; toutes les ferames sont peifides, artificieiises, 
vaniteusps; le raonde n'est qu'un egout sana fond oil leg 
phoques lea plus iiiformea rampent et se tordent sur dea 
luontagnea de fange : mats il y a au nionde une chose 
sainte et aublime; c'est I'union de deux de ces ctres si 
Imparfaita et si affreux. . . ." 



was some indescribable family likeness to Harp- 
ington in the quiet old house, with its potpourri 
pots, and Chinese junks, and faded carpets, and 
narrow slit windows. But the welcome was 
warmer; for Miss Marlow nodded, and bright- 
ened, and twinkled more often in five minutes 
than the Squire in his whole lifetime. 

"How do you do? Welcome, my dear. 
Well !" — taking both her hands — " are you very 
much in love ? Pretty thing, isn't she ? Eliza, 
I wish you had brought my brother with you. 
Come up, come up. There, this is the draw- 
ing-room, and this is the balcony, with a nice 
little iron table for lovers to sit at. Now come 
up stairs. There is some one to dinner. Mat- 
thew, send my maid. We must make the bride 
look prettier still for dinner ; mustn't we, Jim ?" 

Miss Marlow enjoyed nothing so much as a 
romance, for she had been in love many many 
times herself. 

"And so you say Robert is not a bit changed 
since he was last here? why, that is a century 
ago at least ; we are a good wearing family, and 
as for Felicia, I hope she will look just as she 
does now for twenty years to come." 

They all had some tea very sociably together. 
Miss Marlow poured it out, with her bonnet very 
much on one side. Mrs. Marlow imagined it 
to be London fashion, and mentally railed at 
new - fangled London ways ; as for Felicia — 
breathless, excited, Avith radiating gray eyes — 
she took in all that was round about her — the 
aunt, the old servants, the potpourri, the fusty 
cushions and gilt tables, the winding Westmin- 
ster streets outside, the Park, the distant roar 
of the town, the tops of statues, and turrets, the 
Horse Guards — and ah ! the Prince of Wales 
actually in person, riding down Birdcage Wall. 
She went up stairs to dress for dinner, and pres- 
ently Mrs. Marlow came in with some ancient 
amethyst ornaments. 

" Here, Felicia, I shall not wear them myself. 
You may have them," she said. 

Felicia, who had been looking disconsolately 
in the glass at a pretty face and shining hair, 
was charmed, and instantly fastened the bygone 
elegance round her slim white neck, and felt 
herself beautiful. 

" Oh, thank you, grandmamma. Shall you 
wear your jaspers?" Felicia asked. 

But Mrs. Marlow answered abruptly, she was 
tired, and she should not come down at all. She 
looked black and rigid, and it was in vain Feli- 
cia implored her to relent in her determination. 

"Your great-grandfather's will was iniqui- 
tous," said Mrs. Marlow, absently. ' ' Mary Anne 
has no possible right to this house. Yes, I shall 
remain in my room. You may stay with me, 
Felicia, if you feel as I do on the subject." 

"Oh, grandmamma !" gasped poor Fay. "It 
happened such a very long time ago. I think 
I will go down." 

"You can do as you like in the matter, and 
judge for yourself," said Mrs. Marlow, coldly. 
" Send me that volume I gave you to read on 
the way." 



SOLA. 



345 



And so Felicia left her grandmother reading 
a vohime of Fortcous's sermons, antl escaped 
much relieved, and went and knocked at her 
aunt's door to tell her of the change. Miss 
Marlow popped her head, still in her bonnet, 
out of her bedroom. 

"Not coming! Dear me, what a pity. Ready? 
— that is right, my dear : make yourself pretty, 
for Captain Baxter is come." 

****** 

A kind fate sometimes gives people what they 
wish for long long before they have ventured 
even to expect it ; Felicia had hoped to see 
Baxter once perhaps, or twice — meeting in a 
street just before she left — and now, the very 
first evening of her arrival, she was told he was 
come — down stairs, actually in the house ! Make 
herself pretty ! Her cheeks brightened up of 
their own accord, her lips began to smile, and 
such sweet, gay, childish happiness beamed from 
her gray eyes, that Miss Marlow was obliged to 
come out of her room and embrace her on the 
spot then and there. 

Felicia lingered a little as she went, and as 
she lingered it was with an odd feeling that she 
recognized the twins of some of the old home 
things, some chairs like those at Harpington, 
and some old Italian china, and a plate not un- 
like the Sola plate at home, with arabesques and 
ornaments, but no clasped hands wei-e there. 
Felicia came to the drawing-room door, at last, 
hesitated and went in very slowly. James 
had not come down. Felicia in her amethysts 
turned pale, as Baxter, who was standing alone 
in the room, came up to greet the young lady. 

At a first glance Aurelius thought Felicia 
yery much changed. She looked older, graver ; 
perhaps the dusky damask, and gorgeous pic- 
ture-frames, and gilt tables made a less becom- 
ing background than the ivy walls and peri- 
winkles at Harpington. 

"I am so glad to see you again," he said. 
" It was very kind of Miss Marlow to let me 
come and meet you." 

As Aurelius finished this little speech, he 
looked at her again. What had he been dream- 
ing of ? she was prettier, fav far prettier than he 
remembered her even. A sort of curious bright 
look, half conscious, half doubting, was in her 
eyes ; she blushed and smiled. 

" I am so glad you have come. I was afraid 
I should only see you by chance," said she. 

" We have not had a talk since that last 
time we parted," said Aurelius, stupidly ; "but 
little Lucy treasured up her flowers." 

"And you believe me?" Felicia cried ear- 
nestly, blushing as she spoke. 

"I never doubted you," said Aurelius; and 
he believed he was speaking the truth. Beauty 
is the most positive of all convictions. 

The others presently came into the room. 
Miss Marlow resplendent and ushered in by 
gongs. 

" James, take your bride in to dinner," she 
cried, with a nod and an intelligent look at 
Baxter, who glanced at the two and then stifily 



I offered his arm to the old lady. The Captain 
was a favorite with Miss Marlow, who liked good 
looks, and had not yet got over an early pen- 
chant for the army. She had asked him first at 
James's suggestion, and now counted on him as 
an agreeable escort on the many occasions she 
had already devised for taking herself and Fe- 
licia to see sights, theatres, parties, toilettes. 
There was no end to the things Miss Marlow 
wanted to take Felicia to see. 

Mrs. Marlow let her sister-in-law go her own 
way. She could not forgive her, and Avould 
not join many of the schemes and expeditions. 
She was envious, lonely, and home-sick : after 
that first day she would come down and sit dis- 
mally in a corner ; but, in her way, she was 
touched by Felicia's delight, and, perhaps, she 
wondered if she had always done enough for the 
hajipiness of the two children she had reared. 
Felicia and her betrothed behaved exactly as 
usual. Jim tried to find a proof of Fay's affec- 
tion for him in the long hours she spent among 
the ribbons and gauzes of her trousseau. The 
girl brightened, chattered, ruled her kind and 
patient little lover with an iron rod, and then 
rewarded him by one word of happiness. If 
she was happy it was all he asked. Poor Jim ! 
his was but a small share of all this excitement 
and pleasure. Fay wounded him one day by 
saying before Baxter, "You don't look at all 
like a husband, Jim ; you are much more like 
an uncle." This was the first time she had ever 
talked about their approachijig marriage. In 
vain Jim spoke of coming times, and tried to 
find out what was in her mind. She shifted, 
parried, doubled, and finally would run away 
altogether ; she was too happy in the present to 
face the future, and all Felicia's present, like a 
dissolving view, had opened and revealed de- 
lights more endless, even, than any she had im- 
agined for herself. 

Many people, seeing her sitting in the Park 
one morning between Jim and Captain Baxter, 
looked a second time and smiled at the dazzling 
young creature. There was a great fiower-bed 
of red rhododendrons just behind her chair. 
She had put on one of her pretty new trousseau 
di-esses ; she was gay, glad, happy, beyond any 
happiness she had ever conceived before. As 
for her approaching marriage, I do not honestly 
believe she had ever given it a single thought ; 
all she knew was that she was sitting there with 
Jim to take care of her, and to wait as long as 
ever she liked, with Baxter — who. was kind 
now, and who no longer thought her heartless — 
with a sight so glittering and cheerful that 
that alone would have been enough for her. 
The horses went by with their beautiful shining 
necks and smooth clean-cut limbs ; the ama- 
zons rode along, laughing and talking as they 
passed ; the young men, magnificent and gelf- 
conscious, were squaring their elbows and 
swooping by on their big horses ; the grand 
dresses and ladies went rustling along the foot- 
path ; the pleasant green park spread and gleam- 
ed ; a sort of song, of talk, and footsteps and sun- 



346 



SOLA. 



shine was in the air. High over head the little 
pinkish gray London clouds were sailing across 
tlie blue sky, and the long distant lines of white 
houses Mere twinkling with light. And yet 
nothing is quite perfect; why did Aurelius ask 
her just then when the marriage was to take 
place ? 

' ' Marriage ! " said Felicia, " what marriage ? 
Ours do you mean ? Oh, any time." 

"My grandfiither talks of August," said 
James gravely. 

"August! when is August?" said Felicia, 
looking a little strangely. For the first time 
n swift quick pang of certainty seemed to come 
over her. It was like nothing that she had ever 
felt before. But she was brave, young, and 
confident ; she wanted to be happy, and so in a 
moment her dancing gray eyes were raised to 
Baxter's. 

" You must never talk ^bout our wedding 
again," she said ; " we don't like it. We mean 
to be happy while we can, without troubling 
ourselves about the future ; don't we, Jim ?" 

"I hope we shall be happy any way, dear," 
said Jim, gravely. 

Aurelius looked from one to the other and 
thought this was the strangest love-making he 
had ever witnessed. The next time he came 
he brought a little parcel in his hand, which he 
asked her, in. an ashamed sort of voice, to ac- 
cept as a token of sympathy on an occasion he 
was not permitted to name. Felicia had heard 
of wedding-presei^ts, but had not thought they 
would come to her. She screamed with de- 
light, seeing a beautiful little gold-glittering 
ring for her arm, from which a crystal locket 
was lianging. 

" Oh, how pretty !" she cried. " Is it for me 
— really for me ? Oh, thank you. Look, Jim ; 
look, grandmamma." 

Mrs. Marlow looked, and dryly said it must 
have cost a good deal of money. As for Feli- 
cia, she was radiant. The loan of her grand- 
mother's amethysts had charmed her ; how 
much more this lovely thing, glittering, twink- 
ling, her very own. It was a link, poor little 
soul, in her future destiny. 

****** 

Days went on, and the time was drawing near 
for their return. Felicia's pretty gowns were 
bought, and Miss Marlow'^ hundred pounds ex- 
pended. The old Squire wrote to his wife bid- 
ding her come home and bring the girl. Our 
poor little Proserpine, whose creed it was to live 
in tlie present, and to pick the flowers, and not 
to trouble herself with what she did not see, 
woke one day to find tliat the present was near- 
ly over, and the past was beginning again. Tlie 
past! was she to go back to it ; to leave life and 
light for that tomb in which she had been bred ; 
to sQe Aurelius no more, London no more, liv- 
ing men and women no more ; live with only 
sheep, only silence, only shadows, and the drone 
of insects to fill up the rest of her life ; only 
Jim, Jim whose every tliought and word and 
look slie knew by heart? "Oh! it was hor- 



rible ; it was a shame. It shouldn't be. She 
couldn't go," said Felicia to herself. "She 
would stay on with her aunt. She would ask 
her. She would not go." She began walking 
up and down her little bedroom, like a young 
tigress pacing a narrow cage. Her grandmoth- 
er looked in hearing a hasty rush of footsteps, 
and Felicia stopped short in her walk. 

" Is any thing the matter?" said Mrs. Mar- 
low. 

" Nothing, grandmamma," said Felicia. And 
then when the door was shut again, once more 
she began her fierce gymnastics. A few min- 
utes before James had said, "We must come 
again when we are married, Felicia, and see all 
the sights we leave unseen now." 

"There is plenty of time," says Felicia. 
" Three days," says James. 
"Three days!" cries the girl; "but I don't 
mean to go, I don't want to go, I shall stay, 
James, do you hear ? Aunt Mary Anne will 
ask me. How unkind you are !" 

"I am afraid Aunt Mary Anne is packing 
up to go, too," said poor stupid James. "Dear, 
some day when I have the right to bring you, 
you shall come for as long as you like." 

" Some day ! I want it now," cries Felicia. 
" I haven't seen the waxworks or the lions. I 
— I uill stay," she flashed at him in a passion. 
And then, as usual, she ran away, realizing that 
she was talking nonsense, that she was power- 
less, that she was only a girl, and that here was 
happiness, delight, interest, a world where every 
hour meant its own special delight, sympathy, 
friendship ; and friendship was more than love, 
thought Felicia, a thousand times, and she 
might not taste it. To be her own self, that 
was what Felicia longed for. Here in London 
life seemed made for her ; there at Harpington 
it seemed to her, looking back, that she was 
like one of the periwinkles growing round the 
garden-gate. 



VII. 

Baxter was, as I have said, a widower ; he 
looked back to his early married days now from 
the heights of thirty-five. Life was not to him 
the wonderful strange new thing it seemed to 
Felicia, coming from her periwinkle haunts, 
from tlie still lichen-grown walls of brick, which 
so cftectually keep out many spiritual things, 
and within which all her existence had been in- 
closed. When Baxter found himself gratefully 
accepting Miss Marlow's invitations to dinner, 
coming day after day to the old dark house, 
patiently waiting among the needlework chairs 
and cushions in the gorgeous drawing-room ; 
planning one scheme and another to give pleas- 
ure to little Felicia, who was so hajipy, and in 
such delight at his coming — when he found 
himself thinking of her constantly, and living 
l)erpetually in her company, he said to himself 
—for he was a loyal gentleman — that this must 



SOLA. 



347 



not be. It was a pity, but it must not be. He 
Iiacl respected his wife, but she liad never charm 
ed him. People generally destined liim for her 
cousin, Miss Flower ; but now he began to tell 
himself that this also was impossible. Tliere 
had been one real story in his life, of which 
people knew nothing, which was told now, and 
to which (for it was there written and finished) 
there were no new chapters to add, for the dic- 
tating spirit was gone forever. As for Emily 
Flower, she andAurelius understood each other 
very well : they were sincere friends, nothing 
more, and they let people talk as they perhaps 
talked of others in turn, without caring or 
knowing very much of concerns that were not 
their own. 

If Felicia had not been going back so soon, 
and her fate decided, and if James himself had 
not asked him again and again to come home, 
to join them in one excursion and another, 
Baxter might have kept to his good resolves, 
and avoided the bright sweet young sylph who 
had beguiled him. But it was for such a lit- 
tle while, surely, there was no harm in it, he 
told himself. She would not guess his secret, 
poor little thing — sacrificed to the old people's 
convenience and cupidity. Suddenly, thinking 
of it all, of Felicia's unconsciousness, a sort of 
indignation seized the young man at the thought 
of this marriage. Some one should save her ; 
some one should hold her back — say a warning 
word before it was too late. He would inter- 
fere ; he would go to Mrs. Marlow and protest. 
But then came a thought of Jim, generous, gen- 
tle, unselfish, full of heart and afl:ection — worth 
a dozen Felicias, thought Baxter, who was not 
bliud to her faults — only he loved her all the 
same — and Jim also loved her, and Felicia was 
indilferent ; that was the cruel part of the bar- 
gain. 

Who are we, to judge for others ? In after 
days, Baxter remembered his indignation, re- 
membered it in shame and in remorse. It was 
too late then to change the past ; but not too late 
to regret it. 

Felicia cried herself to sleep that niglit, and 
again Mrs. Marlow came into tlie child's room, 
and stood by the great four-post bed, where the 
little creature was writhing and starting. 

"Fay, my dear," said the old lady, "you for- 
get yourself. Wake up. What is it ?" 

Felicia woke up, with her great sleepy eyes 
full of tears, stared about her vaguely, and then 
fell asleep again, as girls do. 

I think, if she had spoken then, the old lady 
would have helped her ; but she slept quietly, 
and Mrs. Marlow, who had been frightened, left 
her. Felicia was so little used to talk to her 
grandmother, that she did not know how to dp 
it. She would as soon have thought of telling 
the marble washstand that she was unhappy. 

But, nevertheless, Jim had spoken, and Fe- 
licia's looks had implored, and Mrs. Marlow, 
with heroic self-sacrifice, had written to ask for 
leave to stay another week. Felicia, hearing 
the great news, never for an instant doubted 



that all was right, and once more she embarked 
in her golden seas of contentment. 

There was a little expedition she looked for- 
ward to with some excitement. It should be 
the last, Baxter had mentally decided. There 
was to be a river, a row, a tea-making in the 
woods. Little Lucy and her cousin. Miss Flow- 
er, were to come to it, and James, and Fay, and 
Miss Marlow, who was always ready to enjoy 
herself. Mrs. Marlow, according to her wont, 
said she should not be able to go. 

Felicia came down early that morning to 
breakfast, and flung open a window to let in a 
fresii gust of early London soot. Some distant 
cries reached her ears. A morning sight of 
busy park and passing people spread before her. 
Some far-away bells were ringing. All was 
wide, bright, and misty. She tried to realize 
her own happiness for a minute; but couldn't. 
A whole day's pleasuring — a whole week's res- 
pite. Her grandmother had written, and all 
was well. Another week ! Another week was 
another lifetime ; and she need not trouble her- 
self about what would come after. 

" Oh, Jim, I am so happy," she said, going 
up to him, as he came into the room. 

And then came post, tea-urns, old ladies, and 
funny old mahogany tea - caddies ; and then • 
came, once more, swift, and sharp, and over- 
whelming, a pang of disappointment more cruel 
than any that had gone before. 

" I have heard from your grandfather," said 
Mrs. Marlow, quite cheerfully (as if it did not 
seem a matter of life and death to poor Fay), 
" and he says, my dear, that we have been away 
quite long enough, and that we must start to- 
morrow, as we first arranged." 

" To-morrow ?" gasped the girl, in a strange 
numb horror. 

" I suppose you have got your finery, and I 
hope James has bought the gold ring " (reading). 
"There is nothing to wait for now, and the 
wedding may as well take place on your return. 
The banns shall be put up next Sunday, and 
there need be no more talk about the matter. 
As for Parsons, the way he has behaved about 
that horse was only what might have been ex- 
pected. I shall have him up at the next assizes, 
and let the county see that I am not the 
man to be put upon. Remember me to Mary 
Anne . . . ." So read the old lady. 

Felicia heard no more : she listened, turning 
white and red over her teacup : she looked up 
once imploringly at James, and met a shy 
adoring glance that made her hate him. Mrs. 
Marlow nodded relief. Miss Marlow was 
beaming and kissing her hand ; the old butler, 
who had come in with some boiling water, 
seemed to guess what was passing, and he too 
smiled. And Felicia was cold, pale, furious, 
in a strange desperate state of mind — desperate, 
and yet determined, and sure even in her de- 
spair of some secret help somewhere — she did 
not tell herself whence it was to come. She 
could bear it no longer, and jumjiing up, white 
as a ghost, she ran out of the room. 



318 



SOLA. 



Felicia never forgot that day in its strange 
jumble of happiness and misery. Baxter was 
right when he called her cold-hearted. She 
no more cared for Jim, no more thought of his 
possible pain, than she thought of the feelings 
of the footman who opened the door, or the 
stoker who drove the engine. 

The sun shone, the engine was whistling ; 
Aurelius, holding little Lucy by the hand, and 
accompanied by a smiling young lady in a hat 
and long blue veil, met them at the station. 
Jim, still unconscious of his companion's silence 
and preoccupation, pulled her arm through his 
and ca-.ried her along the long line of carriages, 
leaving his aunt to Aurelius's care. All the 
way Jim had talked and asked questions in his 
unusual elation ; every word he said worried 
and jarred upon the girl. Now, in his happi- 
ness, he went on talking and chirping, but 
Felicia was in a cloud, and did not listen : 
sometimes, waking up, she thought of appealing 
to him then and there, in the carriage, with all 
the others to take her part, and of imploring 
him to help her — to what ? to escape from him. 
Sometimes she felt that her one chance would 
be to run away, and never be heard of again ; 
sometimes, with a start, she asked herself what 
was this new terrible thing hanging over her — 
this close-at-hand horrible fate — made for her, 
such as no one before had ever experienced. 
Then for some minutes, as was her nature, she 
put it all away, and began to play cat's-cradle 
with little Lucy Baxter, who was sitting beside 
her. 

They reached Henley at last, scudding 
through broad sunny meadows, with a siglit of 
blue summer woods, and of the hills overhang- 
ing the flooding river ; they lunched at the old 
red brick house, with the great lilac westerias 
hanging and flowering, and then they took a 
boat and rowed against the stream to War- 
grave. Sliding, gliding along, against the rush 
of the clear water, pa«t the swirls of the wave- 
lets, and the rat-holes, and the pools ; among 
the red reeds and white flowers, along damp, 
sweet banks of tangle and grass. It soothed 
and quieted poor Felicia's fever; by degrees a 
feeling came to her of a whole world passing 
away in remorseless motion and of a fate against 
which it was vain to struggle. This was life 
and fate to be travelling along between green 
banks, with summer sights, and flying birds, and 
woods and wreathing green things all about, 
while the stream of life and feeling flowed away 
quick in a contrary direction, with a rapid rush 
carrying the sticks and leaves and mementos, 
and passing lights along with it. And so at 
last she was soothed and calmed a little as the 
boat swung on. Perhaps there is happiness 
even in travelling against one's fate, thought 
poor Felicia, despairing. The happiest per- 
son in that boat - load was little Lucy, who 
had not yet reached her life, and next to 
her the old lady, who was well nigh over it, 
who sat talking and chirping to Miss Flower. 
James was silent, for he had at last discovered 



Felicia's abstraction, and he had seen that she 
did not hear him when he spoke to her. But 
when Aurelius once made a little joke, Felicia 
brightened up again, and suddenly seemed to 
throw off" the cloud which oppressed her. 

As the boats touched the shore they saw a fire 
burning in the little wood ; the smoke was ris- 
ing blue and curling, and the flames sparkling 
among the sticks. All the summer -green 
slopes of the wood were bright with leaves, 
twigs, buds, fragrant points ; faint showers of 
light and blossom and perfume seemed falling 
upon the branches ; it may have been the ef- 
fect of the sunbeams shining on the woods 
lighting the waters. The lodge-keeper's wife 
had lighted the fire, which smoked and spark- 
led, and Emily Flower made tea. Aurelius 
laughed and shook his head when she offered 
him some — tea was not much in his line, he 
said ; nor was Felicia yet of an age much given 
to tea-drinking: that is a consolation which is 
reserved for her elders, who are more in need 
of such mild stimulation ; but she stirred her 
cup, and set it down upon the grass, and waved 
away the flies with the stem of a wild rose that 
James had picked for her. 

Every now and then Felicia stole a glance at 
INIiss Flower. She could not understand that 
demure young lady, who looked so little, spoke 
so rarely. She seemed so unlike any of Feli- 
cia's experiences (experiences, by the way, 
which were chiefly confined to herself, for she 
had never had a companion), that Felicia could 
not understand her. Emily Flower, however, 
understood Felicia A^ery well, and the two did 
not somehow seem to amalgamate. Felicia 
wished that she could be sure Miss Flower and 
Aurelius were nothing to each other. She 
looked from one to the other more than once. 

"Are you still happy, Felicia?" said Jim, 
sadly, coming up to her as she stood there wav- 
ing her rose-branch. 

"Happy?" said Felicia. "No; I am mis- 
erable." 

" What makes you miserable ?" James ask- 
ed. 

For a moment she had a mind to tell him ; 
then her courage failed. 

"I can't go back," she cried, evading the 
truth, with a sudden impetuous burst of emo- 
tion. "Oh, Jim, if you loved me you would 
help me ; but you don't, and I hate you ! " Then 
a minute after she was suddenly sorry for him 
for the first time that day, and as he stood silent 
and hurt, she put her hand on his arm. " You 
know I don't hate you, Jim," she said, piteously. 
" How silly you are to mind." And she dashed 
the rose-branch across her face to wipe away 
her tears. 

Nobody noticed this little scene, except per- 
haps Aurelius, who had been standing near, and 
wlio walked away with little Lucy and began 
pulling down ivy-wreaths for the child. 

I don't know how he knew, but at that min- 
ute Jim, in his turn looking from one to the 
other, seemed to understand it all. He left 



SOLA. 



349 



Felicia for a minute, aiid then came back, wist- 
fully. 

"Can't you trust me, Felicia?" he said, in 
an odd, doubtful voice. 

But poor Fay had not even trust to give him 
as yet. She did not understand, and stared 
with beautiful listless gray eyes. Then she 
went and flung herself down by the fire, and 
watched the flame crackling and drifting among 
the glowing twigs, and listened to her aunt talk- 
ing on and on to Miss Flower, and to the sound 
of the river running by the bank, and washing 
against the leaves and the grasses. . . . 



VIII. 

The tea-party was over — they were floating 
with the stream again, and travelling back at a 
rapid pace past the trim green rustic lawns at 
Wargrave towards Henley — past a desolate- 
looking island, where a barge was floating ; past 
banks of wild roses, flowering and hanging in 
fanciful garlands : golden flags were springing, 
and lilies opening their chalices, and stars, white 
and violet, were studding the banks of this lovely 
summer-world. Then they left it all, and pass- 
ed into a dark cavernous dungeon of waters, 
shut in by great wooden doors. Felicia was 
not yet used to locks, and she and little Lucy 
grasped each other's hands as the boat began 
sinking into the depths, sinking to the roar of 
the weir and the mill, into slimy green profundi- 
ties, hollowed and destroyed by the discolored 
tides. The little rose-cottage where the keeper 
lived went right up into the air — so did his lit- 
tle children, who had rushed out to help to open 
the sluices. 

Down went the boat to the very depths : the 
great green dripping walls were covered with 
slime and weeds ; up above roses were flower- 
ing on the surface of the earth ; down here the 
sunlight scarcely touched the gloom, and dank 
dripping mould and creeping vegetation. Little 
waterfalls burst through the rotten gates and fell 
roaring and rushing into the dark waters. 

" Oh, what a terrible place !" said Felicia. 

Miss Marlow gave a little shriek as the boat 
bumped suddenly against the side of the lock. 

"Are you frightened?" said Baxter to Feli- 
6-ia. 

"Yes," said Felicia; and then she looked 
up and smiled. "I mean no," she said, "not 
if you — " Then, seeing that James was look- 
ing at her, she stopped short. 

Jim, who was standing up with the boat-hook 
in his hand, turned awiiy, and, stooping over 
the edge of the boat, looked at something deep 
down in the river. Perhaps a minute may have 
passed — it seemed a very long while to him. 
When he looked up again, Felicia was blushing 
still, the great gates were opening, the water 
was pouring through, and a glimpse of the sweet 
flowing river shone once more between the great 



portals : it all looked more lovely if possible for 
the gloom in which they had been waiting. 

Then Jim and Baxter pushed with their long 
boat-hooks, and the boat began to slide out from 
the dark jaws in which it had been inclosed. 
The gates creaked as they opened wide : the 
boat was almost between them — when some- 
thing happened. I can not exactly tell how, a 
great barge that was waiting outside began to 
move, and struck against the gate. The lock- 
man had been called away, one of the two boys 
turning the pulley tripped and fell, the other 
boy's hand slipped ; the windlass began to un- 
twist rapidly, and the great gates to close fast 
upon the little boat. 

"Pull! pull!" shouted Baxter, who was at 
the bow, to James, who had instinctively begun 
to back. 

Their two contrary effbrts delayed them for 
an instant ; James, seeing the danger, with a 
great effort caught at the gate with his boat- 
hook, and, with an impetus from his whole body, 
urged the boat through. It was just in time, 
the boat was safe, the barge was stopped ; but 
the boat-hook stuck in the wood, and before any 
one could help him, Jim was over and splashing 
in the water. 

It was no very great matter : a punt close at 
hand came to his help, and the little boat's crew 
landed, and waited in the garden while the lock- 
keeper dried Jim's clothes. The man lent him 
some of his own while the others were drying, 
and Jim, coming out of the little rose-cottage 
in a fustian jacket, top-boots, and fur cap, found 
Miss Flower sitting on a little green wooden 
bench under a rose-tree. He saw old Miss 
Marlow's broad back as she stood placid, gaz- 
ing at the river, and Aurelius and Felicia and 
little Lucy Avere wandering along the banks 
under the little row of willow-trees in the 
meadow, where the cows were crunching the 
buttercups. There was a bird singing some- 
where, and a dog leaping in the grass, and a 
sweet flood of peaceful light. 

Miss Marlow turned round from her contem- 
plation of the river, hearing Jim's voice. She 
came up and took his arm, and leaning heavily, 
proposed that they should follow the others. 

" Come, Miss Flower, you are not doing your 
duty," said the old lady, " allowing your cous- 
in to flirt as he does with engaged young la- 
dies." 

But Emily said gravely, "No, thank you. 
I am tired, and I will wait for you here." 

Felicia and Lucy had found great bunches 
of forget-me-nots growing down by the river. 
They were trying to tempt the cows to come 
and eat them. 

It was about eight o'clock when they reached 
the station. Little Lucy was to go home im- 
mediately, and to bed. She and Emily Flower 
had come up for a two-days' visit to a friend. 
Miss Marlow, like an old goose, instead of say- 
ing good-bye, cordially invited Captain Baxter 
to come back to supper with them. Wouldn't 
i\Iiss Flower come, too, if tliey dropped little 



350 



SOLA. 



Lucy on their way ? But again ]Miss Flower 
refused very decidedly. 

"I think Lady Mary expected you, Aure- 
lius," she said. 

" Then I will go with you," said Aurelius. 

"Oh, Miss Flower, our last night!" cried 
Miss Marlow, reproachfully. 

And then poor Emily, who could not bear to 
seem grasping and unreasonable, said, blush- 
ing, that she could easily explain to Lady 
Mary, and she begged Aurelius to call a han- 
som for her and Lucy, and the two drove off to 
the house in Chesham Place, where they were 
staying. They were to go home the next morn- 
ing. 

Felicia and her aunt went off together in a 
brougham which had been waiting, and reached 
Queen Square some little time before the two 
gentlemen arrived. Felicia's first question was 
for her gi-andmother. The old butler said that 
Mrs. Marlow was in her room. She had been 
out that afternoon, and came home about four 
o'clock complainingof faintness. Felicia thought 
her looking ill, when she ran in, in the glad way 
that girls burst in after a pleasant day. 

" Are you ill, dear grandmamma ? We have 
had such a day !" said the girl. " Oh dear me, 
why is it over? I wish you had been with us. 
Oh, how I wish we were not going to-morroAv! 
What has been the matter ?" 

" I don't know," said Mrs. Marlow a little 
strangely. "I have been ill and out of spirits. 
I could not have staid away longer from home, 
Felicia. I have suffered too much for your 
pleasure as it is." 

Felicia flushed up, hurt. " My pleasure, 
dear grandmamma ! I don't have so very 
much." 

"You never think of any thing else," said 
Mrs. Marlow. "Girls are always thinking of 
their pleasure : they don't mind what pain 
they give others," the old lady went on, still in 
this strange excited way. "There is your 
grandfather alone ; here am I quite ill and 
overdone. I shall be thankful when this mar- 
riage is over." 

" You need not tell me that," cried the girl, 
indignant. "I know it." 

"When a thing is settled and determined, 
the sooner it is done with the better," said Mrs. 
Marlow. 

Fay's heart began to beat. 

"Determined and settled, griindmamma!" 
she cried. "I think it is cruel the way in 
which you and gi'andpapa talk : you have set- 
tled every thing for us, and it is cruel, yes, cruel ! 
I can do notliing, and no one will help me, 
and you care for nothing, so long as grandpapa 
has his own selfish way," siiid the girl. 

"Hush!" said Mrs. Marlow, white and an- 
gry. "This is not the way for you to speak 
of your grandfather. I am frightened by your 
impertinence." 

The poor lady was ill, nervous, thoroughly 
unstrung, almost for the first time since Felicia 
had known her. She had never before taken 



any of the girl's outbursts seriously. Fay, too, 
was excited, unreasonable. The idea of break- 
ing off had never occurred to her till that day ; 
she was in an agitated state of mind, impres- 
sionable, easily upset. 

It all happened in a moment. Miss Marlow 
had barely time to pant up stairs to find the 
two in high controversy — Felicia in tears, Mrs. 
Marlow flushed and agitated. 

" What is the matter? My dear Eliza, I am 
so sorry to hear of your indisposition. Fay, go 
and get ready for dinner," cried Miss Marlow. 

It Avould have been better, far better for Feli- 
cia, if they had ended their little quarrel ; fought 
it out, and made it up with tears. As it was, 
Miss Marlow separated them, and when the 
gong sounded, Felicia, still indignant, came into 
her grandmother's room. 

"I am going doyn, grandmamma; are you 
ready ?" * 

The old lady was busy packing in the hair- 
box. 

"You had better go, Felicia;" said Mrs. 
Marlow, without looking up. " I Avill follow. 
Pray remember never again to speak to me of 
your grandfather as you did just now. It is 
what I can not listen to." 

She spoke so coldly, that once more Felicia 
felt a thrill of injured indignation ; and she 
swept down stairs with a heart aching sorely, 
notwithstanding all the pleasures of the day. 



IX. 

It was in the evening. They had all finished 
dinner. Mrs. Marlow had gone up again to see 
to her packing ; Miss Marlow had got up from 
table and come away into the after-dinner 
drawing-room, holding Felicia's hand in hers. 
Baxter — (Miss Marlow, as I have said, had in- 
sisted on his coming. I can not imagine how 
a woman of her sentimental experience can have 
been so silly. Is it possible that a thought of 
thwarting her brother may have added a little 
malice to her hospitality ?) — Baxter, who had 
come back at the old lady's request to say good- 
bye, was sitting with James in the dining-room. 
The great windows were wide open upon the 
balcony, and the dusky park gloomed without, 
at once hot and cool and mysterious. Felicia, 
who had scarcely spoken all dinner-time, who 
was angry still, was summoning up her courage 
to speak now — to say what was in her heart — 
to implore Miss Marlow to help her. She loved 
Jim dearly, dearly. Some day, years and years 
hence, she would marry him if he wished it; 
but now, ah, no ! it was impossible. She fell 
down upon her two knees by her aunt's low chair, 
then for a minute was silent, looking out across 
the gray evening, watching the distant lights, 
the bright stars shining clear in the faint sum- 
mer sky. She thought of the river flowing on 
—of Jim and his faithful kindness, with more 
affection and remorse, I think, at this minute, 



SOLA. 



S51 



than in all her life before ; and then suddenly 
she burst out, in her childish, plaintive voice, 
seizing Miss Marlow's hand tight in her two 
eager little palms — "Oh, tell me what is to 
happen — what is to happen! Oh, Aunt Mary 
Anne, what sliall I do ?" 

Aunt Mary Anne was a coward at heart. 
She turned round and stared at the imploring 
face upturned to her ; she had not realized the 
edged tools with which she had been playing 
when she brought two impulsive young people 
together. There had been, as I have said, a 
little quiet spite in her doings ; a little selfish- 
ness, for she liked the Captain's company ; a 
little common-sense and good-will and a feeling 
that Felicia should see some other man in all 
the world beside Jim, before she retired with 
him forever to the solitudes of Harpington. 
But Miss Marlow had judged by her own vague 
and manifold sentimental experiences. Felicia's 
strange looks that afternoon, her sudden cry of 
pain, frightened the elder lady. 

Miss Marlow felt for a moment afraid of poor 
eager Felicia, and started up all flustered. 
" Do just what you like, mj^ dear," said the old 
lady, very nervously. " Nobody can force you 
to do any thing you don't like. I — I must go 
and see how your grandmother is getting on." 
And so saying the old maid trotted out of the 
room. 

She was gone in a minute, and poor Fay was 
left frightened and disappointed — bitterly, bit- 
terly disappointed. "What was the good of 
being old, of having lived all those years, if she 
had no help, no kind word to sjiare for a poor 
little thing in trouble ?" thought Felicia. There 
was a something wild and self-reliant in the 
girl's nature that would not be daunted. She 
set her teeth. I will luake her hear me," she 
said to herself: she would speak again when 
this evening was over, when Aurelius was gone, 
and the last happy hour of her life ended for- 
ever. Presently, sitting there still, she found 
that Baxter had come in and was talking to her ; 
she had hardly noticed him at first, so busy was 
she thinking about him. She jumped up con- 
fused, and then they both with the same impulse 
went out upon the terrace. "James is gone 
off for a smoke," the Captain was saying, as he 
followed her. "There he is under the trees." 
Felicia looked and saw that it was not James, 
but she did not speak. 

A sort of sleepy apathy had come over Felicia 
after her day's excitement. She did not care 
what happened just at that minute. It was like 
one of her many visions, to be sitting there with 
Baxter, to hear him speak — to listen to his voice 
in the dusk. What was he saying? He had 
been praising Jim for the last five minutes. He 
felt as if by praising the poor boy he made 
amends somehow for the unowned treachery in 
his heart against him. 

It was some sucli feeling which irritated Feli- 
cia; she was not going to sham and pretend 
what she did not feel. In all her life this faculty 



had been hers of speaking the truth boldly. 
Some people have loved her for it ; others have 
hated her. All this day the poor child had been 
driven to the very utmost end of her powers by 
inward assaults, and doubts, and terrors, born of 
the very excitements and happiness of the last 
few weeks. When Baxter "tepoke, she said 
quickly that "it was not Jim's goodness she 
cared about, and yet he was a hundred times 
too good for her." 

"Too good for you !" Baxter said, speaking 
his thought inadvertently. "Ask him. He 
does not think so : why, it would break his 
heart to part from you." 

"Do you think so?" cried Felicia, desperate. 
"Do you think people mind very much, when 
others break their hearts — when these sort of 
things are broken off? Don't you see how un- 
hajjpy I am ?" she went on. 

Was she false to Jim, poor chil*, in being 
true ? She trusted Baxter so utterly ; she was 
so young, she felt so convinced that she might 
trust him ; slie had begun the talk just now with 
her aunt — it was but going on with it now, lean- 
ing forward with lier piteous little face upturned, 
and waiting for an answer. But no answer 
came ; no one would help her. Baxter was too 
loyal to want her confidence. 

" Come and let us talk to Miss Marlow," he 
said, very gravely; "she will want you to 
come in." 

"No one — no one will help!" cried Felicia, 
desperately. " She won't help me. You won't 
listen to me, you won't help me," she said, as 
he turned to go ; it was all over, there was no 
hope anywhere. 

" Poor child I" he said. 

" Are you sorry for me ?" said Felicia, simply. 
"Then I don't mind so much." 

" Sorry !" cried i)Oor Baxter, at an end of his 
courage. "Don't you see how it is, Felicia — 
that I am trying to be an honest man ?" 

"Oh, what am I to do? Tell me what I 
ought to do ?" said Felicia, breaking into tears. 

Poor little thing ! Her heart beat, her tears 
flowed. She trembled so she could not stand, 
and she put out her hands wildly to grasp some 
support. She had no strong sense of duty. 
When had she ever seen duty practised in that 
dreary self-seeking household? She did not 
love Jim as she loved Aurelius. She could not 
understand tliat, loving and trusting him, she 
should not appeal to him. 

"Oh, iielp me !" she said once more, wring- 
ing her hands. " Oh, I can not, can not go 
back !" 

You blame him, and so do I, that he was 
weak ; that he did not turn away and leave her ; 
that he caught 4ier two poor little outstretched 
hands. 

" Oh, Felicia," he said again, "do you think 
it is you only who are unhappy ? Don't you 
see that I — that some debts are almost more 
than we can pay." 

And then he stop[icd short. What was he 
saying ? What could he say or do that was not 



352 



SOLA. 



a treachery to his friend? And yet these two 
loved each other ; and was it fair that their 
whole love and life should be marred so that 
one person should be made half happy, half con- 
tent ? Only, somehow, Aurelius could not rea- 
son thus. 

"James trust»us; and he is right," said he, 
in an altered voice. 

Poor Aurelius ! If Felicia had been older, 
different, more able to decide ; but, as it was, 
he feltthat it was for him to take a part. Fe- 
licia, Heaven bless her ! was ready to give up 
her faith, her word, if he had desired it. He 
had dropped her two hands. She stood crying 
still, and leaning against a chair. 

" I will do what you think I ought," she 
said. 

It was at that minute that a light from the 
room fell upon the two, and that some one came 
and stood^in the window — some one with a pale 
face, who did not speak for a minute; then Miss 
Marlow, following quick and bustling out — 

" Why, James, where have you been ?" she 
said. "I have been looking for you. There is 
a telegram for you. Dearme! it is getting quite 
cliilly, and they have not brought the tea. 
Would you ring, Captain Baxter?" 

" I am afraid I must be going," said Baxter, 
in a steady voice. No one would have guessed 
from his voice that any thing unusual had hap- 
pened, though his face might have told the story, 
liad tlie light been upon it. He nodded to James, 
shook hands with Miss Marlow. Felicia never 
moved or looked up, nor did he look at her 
again. Aurelius went down the stairs and pass- 
ed out by the narrow iron wicket into the Park, 
and then all his strength left him. He went 
and leant against the railings, resting his arm 
upon the iron, and covering his eyes with his 
hand. Shut eyes or open, he saw that trem- 
bling, wildly-appealing foce. It was no use — it 
was in vain he had known Felicia. He would 
do his duty, heaven help them both. His part 
was clear for the present ; he must go and see 
Felicia no more. 

When Aurelius had said good-night to James, 
the young man had scarcely responded. Bax- 
ter did not know how long he had been stand- 
ing in the window or how much he had heard 
of what had passed. Aurelius, sorry as he was, 
vexed, troubled, unhappy, could not but feel that 
he had acted as an honest man as far as James 
was concerned. Towards poor little Felicia his 
conduct had been less praiseworthy. Leaving 
her, he felt like a traitor, poor fellow ; and yet 
what could he do but leave her ? Where it was 
all to end, Aurelius could not tell. He was a 
man not greatly given to self-dissection and ex- 
amination. His life had bee% too active for 
more than a sort oijow lejour conscience. He 
knew that on the whole he hoped to do his duty 
as a gentleman and a soldier : to wrong no man 
or woman, to speak the truth, to take a fair ad- 
vantage of the enemy when he saw a chance. 
For all his thirty-five years there was a certain 
boyish rigidity about iiim ; and having said that 



black was blue, or discovered that he intended 
to leap a five-barred gate, or be in such a place 
by such a day, black was blue in his eyes, he 
leaped the gate, he went through any inconve- 
nience to keep his word. I do not know that 
there is any particular advantage in playing this 
sort of game of skill with fate and inclination. 
But it is a way some people have, and they are 
honest people for the most part. 

Aurelius, contrary to his wont, had allowed 
himself to drift a little along the stream in the 
pleasant company he had been keeping of late. 
Now he stopped short, and as he stood for a 
minute by the iron railing, he made up his 
mind. No ; he would not go any more to the 
house. He would not say good-bye to Felicia. 
He would not meddle in the business. He could 
not help it if the girl was to be sacrificed. She Avas 
not the first or the last woman to make a mistaken 
marriage, and it was no affair of his. So Baxter 
walked away angry through the twilight of the 
summer's night, quick, straight, rigid, disajipear- 
ing rapidly into the gloom. As he went along he 
saw Felicia's sad eyes appealing everywhere, 
through theglimmering twigs on the trees,shining 
from the stars,and once in the gas-lit windows of 
a shop-front. He did not care, he hardened him- 
self and walked on quicker. Poor Aurelius ! 
he thought it was a shame to leave her. He 
told himself again that it was a crime that two 
people should be sacrificed for so little cause. 
He knew James well enough — that scrujmlous 
soul — to be sure that a word Avould set his con- 
science swaying and whirling, and secure Felicia's 
liberty. He knew all this, he knew it would be 
right. He felt that he was acting wrongly and 
cruelly, and inflicting unnecessary pain; and 
yet, somehow, right as it might be to interfere, 
he (Baxter) was determined that the deed should 
not be of his doing. He should not be the one 
to hand his friend the weapon with which to de- 
stroy his happiness, nor to suggest to Felicia the 
possibility of inflicting upon her lover a deadly 
wound. And so he walked away witU brisk 
steps farther and farther from the dim balcony 
where the passionate cry had so nearly touched 
him, where the poor, pale, trembling little crea- 
ture was still crouching in the dark. 

Poor little Felicia ! Baxter was gone, and the 
child, shrinking out of sight, sat down upon one 
of the low window-steps. James went to find 
his telegram. The tea-tray w.as brought up, 
then Miss Marlow came and called her, and 
went away. Fay gave no answer. She only 
wanted to be alone — to be left to hide herself 
there in the gray darkness and melancholy of 
the night. There was a black corner behind a 
little laurel-tree in a box. Felicia — poor little 
Daphne that she was — longed to creep into the 
narrow dark hole and stay there. Never come 
out again, never hear her own voice speak 
again, never ask people for help and be refused 
any more. No one helped — no one cared for 
her. She covered her face with her hands at 
the thought — abandoned and despised. Ah I 
if she could only be nowhere ; but wherever she 



SOLA. 



353 



was, she cumbered the earth, thought poor little 
Fay in her despair. Would there be vast groves 
of laurel, I sometimes wonder, if men and wom- 
en possessed the power of changing tliemselves 
at will into inanimate trees in moments of shame 
and bewilderment? What a terrible boon it 
would be to humanity! One can imagine the 
fatal wish granted— leaves springing from the 
slender finger-ends, the wreath of laurel creep- 
ing round their heads, the narrow choking bark 
inclosing them in its rapid growth. And then 
the faint aromatic breath of the prussic acid, 
and then the wind shivering among human 
leaves. Poor Fay would have wildly grasped 
at the power if it had been hers at that minute ; 
but nowadays, little girls in trouble can only 
cry and sit with their faces hidden in their 
hands, instead of becoming stars and streams 
and plants. She had spoken in an impulse, 
and now that the impulse was over, what would 
she not give to have been silent — her life, her 
right hand, any thing, every thing. So the 
night wore on, the black leaves rustled close to 
her shining head,London was rolling itself asleep 
and quiet by degrees. 

Felicia at last hearing some clock strike eleven 
across the house-tops, pulled herself wearily up, 
and came out of her hiding. Very pale she 
looked, with a black smudge upon her white 
muslin dress, and wild, sad eyes, with great 
pupils. She could not see, coming into the daz- 
zle of the drawing-room lamps, but she heard 
voices calling her, "Felicia, Felicia!" They 
seemed to be everywhere ; and then James, who 
had come into the room, rushed up to her. " Oh, 
Felicia," he said, " I have been looking for you. 
Go — go to grandmother — there is terrible news 
from home. ..." 

While Felicia had been absorbed in her own 
griefs and preoccupations the great laws of life 
and death and fate had not been suspended, and 
the news had come that the Squire was dead. 

He had been seized with some fatal attack in 
a field, and carried to a cottage close by, where 
he died. He had been found by some laborers. 



X. 

James and Felicia never forgot that terrible 
night. When the morning came, her despair 
of a few hours before seemed like a remembrance 
of some old tune played out and come to an end 
abruptly in the midst of its most passionate ca- 
dence. The tunes of life stop short just in the 
middle, and that is the most curious part of 
our history. Another music sounds, mighty, 
sudden, and unexpected, and we leave off our 
song to listen to it, and when it is over some of 
us have forgotten the song we were singing. 
Perhaps in another world it may come to us 
again. 

This death-music was now sounding through 
the old house in Queen Square. The poor 
grandmother lay crushed and stunned by its 
Z 



awful thunder ; the old aunt, to whom it was 
familiar enough, carae and went with a troubled 
and yet accustomed face. 

" You had better not go to your grandmother, 
child," she said, looking into the room ; "she 
is best alone." 

Fay appealed to Jim, who looked distressed 
and took her hand in his, and to comfort her he 
said they would go together, when Aunt Mary 
Anne was below. 

And so about midnight there was an oppor- 
tunity, and the two went up stairs together. 
The unshuttered windows let in the gleam of a 
starry sky, for the vapors had drifted away. 
They came along the passage to the door of the 
dim front bedroom, where Felicia had left her 
angry grandmother a little while before, and 
where she was now lying stricken, cold, and 
motionless, and stretched at full length upon 
the great bed. There was a dim night-light 
in the room, and they seemed to feel the hard, 
stony grief as they came in ; to meet it — a pres- 
ence with a vague intangible form. Felicia, 
with a beating heart, stood by the bedside. 
Mrs. Marlow neither moved nor spoke. At last 
the girl knelt down, and softly and imploringly 
kissed the old brown hand. It was moved away. 
"Grandmamma, dear grandmamma!" sobbed 
Felicia ; but her grandmother, in an odd, harsh, 
hissing voice said, "Is James there?" and 
when he came, said, still in this quick strange 
way, "I want to be alone, James. Take her 
away." 

Poor Fay! she was trembling like a little 
aspen, and as she got up from her knees she 
held to the chair by the bedside. She was hurt 
and wounded almost beyond bearing. She put 
her hand to her heart: "Oh, grandmamma," 
she faltered, "I who love you so — " 

But Mrs. IMarlow never moved, or looked, or 
answered, and James, putting his arm round Fe- 
licia, brought her away gently and closed the 
door. Once outside in the passage, Felicia 
cried atid cried as if her heart would break. 
Miss Marlow came up stairs, and finding Fay 
there, tried to scold her. 

" You should not have gone to her when I 
told you not. She is not quite in her right 
mind," said the old lady; "and people in her 
state often turn against those they love best. 
You must be good and patient, and James shall 
come and fetch you. I think — Jim, don't you 
think — Fay had better stay here and pack up 
after we are gone, and then you can come back 
for her to-morrow?" 

And poor Fay meekly assented, crying still, 
and utterly crushed and worn out. But she 
would not go to bed : nobody went to bed that 
night. There was an early morning train at 
six o'clock, by which the travellers were to go. 
A conveyance had to be found, preparations 
had to be made, packing done, and notes written. 
Felicia fluttered about, trying to help, utterly 
weary. Then at last she lay down, about two 
in the morning, on the golden sofa in the draw- 
ing-room, and slept till a cab driving up through 



354 



SOLA. 



the silence awoke her. She know it was the 
cab which had come to ta^e tlie others away, 
and she jumped up from the sofa and went out 
on the stairs : she was afraid to go to Mrs. 
Marlow's room. 

Felicia stood with a wistful face waiting to 
see them off, but her grandmother passed her 
without a word or a look. The women came 
down together, followed by James, with bundles 
and cloaks upon his arm. Miss Marlow stopped 
to kiss Fay and bid her go to bed and try to 
sleep. Jim said with his kind face that he 
would come back ; and then they were gone, 
haggard mourners, in the light of the clear 
early dawn. The cab-wheels rolled and echoed 
through the silent streets. Fay stood where 
they had left her, listening to the sound, but 
presently a kind housemaid came and begged 
her to come to bed, and helped Felicia to un- 
dress, and brought her a cup of tea, and sat by 
her bedside till she had fallen asleep. 

When Felicia awoke it was ten o'clock, and a 
misty morning sun was streaming into the room. 
The housemaid had been opening and shutting 
the door and peeping in many times, and she 
now appeared to ask Miss Marlow if she would 
come down to breakfast, or if the butler should 
clear away. 

Felicia said she would come down, and dress- 
ed in a hurry and ran down stairs, with an in- 
definite impression of a scolding from some one. 
But there was no scolding : only the teapot, 
The Times all to herself, a little dish of cold 
buttered toast, a new ])ot of strawberry jam sent 
up by the sympathizing housekeeper. Felicia 
liked the jam, but she had no great appetite, 
and presently she forgot to eat, and sat looking 
at her own reflection in the teapot, and conjur- 
ing up one last scene at home after another, and 
picturing the sad home-coming. 

There was her grandfather standing before 
her, as she had seen him that last time, stooping 
to button the leather apron of the gig. She 
seemed to see him riding off on thewhitS horse, 
with his gray wide-awake pulled tight over his 
gray head ; or coming home and walking into 
the morning-room where she and her grand- 
mother were sitting : then she saw him under 
the tree that sunshiny day busy over his accounts. 
Poor grandfatlier ! he had mended her wheel- 
barrow for her when she was a little girl ; and 
one delightful day she remembered he had taken 
her in the gig to a farm-house, and given her a 
cup of milk with his own hands. A crowd of 
thoughts and remembrances came, and were 
driven aw.ny by a crowd of fancies of what was 
now, of Harpington all gloomy and shut up. 
Felicia was so frightened at last that she rang 
the bell for old Matthew to clear away (Matthew 
was a portly and prosperous old butler, very dif- 
ferent from the poor drudge at Harpington). 
Matthew stopped a long time, but at last Felicia 
saw him carry off the last plate and knife, and 
then she found herself alone once more with the 
bare dining-room table before her : the mahog- 
any sideboard, the mahogany wine-cases, and 



the print of Queen Adelaide over the chimney. 
She tried the drawing-room for a ch.-inge. 
When animate things are away, inanimate things 
attain to a strange life and importance of their 
own. All the gold tables and couches seemed 
to spread themselves out to receive her. Felicia 
sank down in a corner of the sofa and took the 
first book that came to her hand ; but somehow 
she could only see the legs of the chairs and the 
tables, the stuffed birds, and the bust of Miss 
Marlow in her youth nodding. When she had 
tried to read for ten minutes, she thought she 
had been sitting there for hours and hours, with 
Rogers's Italy open before her, and the prints 
of the mountains, and the reflection of the little 
boat sailing in the finely-etched lake. Was that 
horrible little boat never going to reach the 
shore ? Felicia shut up the book and threw it 
down on the cushion beside her. Slie was ac- 
customed to being alone ; but alone was dif- 
ferent at home, where she knew every corner of 
the house, with the garden, and the Avrm, and 
the village children to play with. This was 
hateful. How could Miss Marlow bear such a 
life, so strange and still, and crowded with 
chairs and tables? Felicia did not feel that 
she might run from the top of the house to the 
bottom, dive into outhouses and cupboards — as 
she did at home : here to gaze through glass- 
doors at the shells and Japanese gods, and 
through glass-windows at the silent old houses 
opposite in Queen Square was all that she dared 
to do. Felicia had taken a horror of tlie bal- 
cony. She Ment into the passage, and looked 
for a long while at the old brown house opposite, 
with the dim slit windows ; at the statue of 
Queen Anne standing calm in all her ruffles and 
frills. It must be very dull to be a statue, Fe- 
licia thought. She wandered up to her own 
room, but the grandmother's door was open, and 
through that open door passed a troop of sad 
hobgoblins : all the grandmother's stern looks, 
all the miseries ,of the night before, coming with 
a rush, and surrounding her. 

Felicia fled into the passage again. She 
looked at the pasteboard effigy, painted and 
glazed, of a little page in the corner. In one 
of the glass cupboards on the stairs was a plate 
which put her in mind of the old dish at Har- 
pington. There was a garland and some scroll- 
work. But it was not the same, for the clasped 
hands were missing, nor was Sola written on the 
scroll. What a horrid thing it was to be alone. 
Sola — Sola meant alone as well as the only one. 
Fay made up a little story of some Portia ask- 
ing her knights to choose off which of the two 
plates they would dine ; and one knight said — 
" I will dine alone, lady, for I have a good appe- 
tite, and don't care to share^my meal." And 
the other knight said he would never touch food 
again unless one only lady would consent to 
break bread with him. And then Felicia began 
to wonder what the lady would say, suppose she 
liked the greedy knight best. That was a dif- 
ficult question to answer, and as she was de- 
bating it she heard a ring at the bell, and she 



SOLA. 



355 



leant over the banisters to see who it could 
be. 

One of her two knights was at that minute 
standing outside the door, and she knew his 
voice when he asked if Miss Marlow was at liomc, 
and if I\Irs. JNIarlow was gone back to Harping- 
ton. 

Then Matthew began a long long story, and 
when finally he made way for Captain Baxter 
to come into the liall, it seemed to Felicia that 
it was like the stream of life rushing into the 
hushed house again, and that tlie door of the 
lock had opened, and that her boat was rising 
upon the rising waters ; but she started away as 
usual, and ran and hid herself in the little dress- 
ing-room out of jMiss Marlow's bedroom, where, 
after a long search, the housemaid found her. 



XL 

Meanwhile poor Baxter was waiting in the 
dining-room and looking forward with some 
perturbation to his interview. He had had two 
lines from James that morning begging him to 
call in Queen Square, and telling him what liad 
happened. " If I can not get back to-morrow, 
I am going to ask you to bring Felicia to us," 
James wrote. Aurelius confounded James's 
stupidit3\ Why was Felicia left behind ? Why 
was he, of all people in the world, chosen to es- 
cort her to.Harpington ? 

Baxter could not pretend to any great person- 
al regret for the old Squire, but for the poor 
widow he felt a great compassion, and as for 
Felicia, well, it would delay her marriage, poor 
little thing, and so far at least she was the gain- 
er. It was not in human nature not to be glad 
of the excuse to see her again, although all the 
way Aurelius railed at his friend, and said to 
himself he deserved his fate for his dullness and 
want of comprehension. 

Was Jim so dull? He knew Baxter better 
than Baxter knew himself, and by the light of 
his own honest heart he judged his friend. 
Baxter need not have been afraid of the meet- 
ing. The long sad night had come like a year 
between Fay and the indignant tears she had 
shed for herself the night before. They were 
wiped out. Baxter's first word brought other 
tears into her eyes, tears of regret and of feeling 
for others. Felicia was a whole year older in 
experience than she had been when he last saw 
her. As she came into the room with half 
flashing eyes, Baxter felt ashamed of his alarms, 
and met her quite humbly, saying sometiiing 
about the shock that they had had and his note 
from James. "I came to see if I could do any 
thing for you?" he said. 

Felicia shook her head and sat down listless- 
ly in the big chair by the empty fireplace. 

"I am alone here," she answered, looking 
away. "There is nothing wanted. Poor 
grandmamma went away before six o'clock tliis 
morning. She could not bear to have me with 



her, and so they left m^ere to wait. I want 
nothing, thank you." 

" Poor child !" Aurelius said. He was more 
sorry for Felicia, left alone for a day with these 
gloomy fancies, than for the whole life-agony of 
the widowed woman. He was, poor fellow, in 
a state of indescribable pity, vexation, that he 
could do nothing to help this poor little stricken 
creature. This time it was not Felicia who 
appealed to him ; it was Baxter appealing to 
Felicia. "I wish you would let me do any 
thing for you," he said. Something in his sym- 
pathizing looks roused the girl's indignation. It 
was too late ; she did not want his kindness now. 
For Felicia was used to be adored, and to com- 
mand poor Jim, and to speak her mind plainly 
enough. Her almost childish admiration and con- 
fidence in Baxter had received a shock. She had 
discovered that their friendship meant very little 
after all; that to count upon people outside is of 
little use in home affairs. To think of her own feel- 
ings seemed a sort of sacrilege now at this time. 
Last night, when she asked him to help her, he 
left her ; to-day, when she did not want him, he 
came with offers of help that meant nothing at 
all. There was a certain combativeness, a cer- 
tain determination in Felicia's character — a hor- 
ror of ridicule, a want of breadth and patience 
of nature, all of which feelings kindling sudden- 
ly brought a bright flush of angry color into her 
pale cheeks. "Jim will be here before long," 
she said. "He will take care of me. Noiv I 
want nothing from any one else." 

" Good-bye," said Aurelius, "Please re- 
member, howevei-, that if you want me ever at 
any time anywhere I will come." He spoke so 
humbly that it was impossible to be angry. Fe- 
licia looked at him steadily with her curious 
gray eyes ; her mouth quivered, the color died 
out of her cheeks. 

Felicia's heart began to sink as soon as Bax- 
ter had left the room. She sat quite still, and 
the minutes became hours again, and time ap- 
peared interminable, and release so far, far off, 
that it seemed to this impatient little creature 
as if in that one instant she had waited for an 
eternity — an eternity with James at the end of 
it ! Felicia had said good-bye, the door was 
closed, tlie parting was over, time had passed, 
and now, with a very simple impulse, she sprang 
up and ran out into the hall. Aurelius was 
still there, turning at the many complicated 
locks and cluiin-works that Miss Marlow con- 
sidered necessary for her security and old Mat- 
thew's. They had done Felicia good service on 
this occasion. 

Baxter turned, hearing his name called, and 
saw Fay in the doorway. " Will you do me a 
kindness now directly?" she said impetuously, 
"Will 3'ou take me home? I want to go. I 
can't bear to stay here any longer." 

" Had not you better wait till you hear from 
Jim?" said Baxter, coming back, and not much 
surprised. "I am ready at any time, but he 
may be on his way." 

"I have been thinking of it. He will not 



356 



SOLA. 



come till to-morrow,^ said Felicia, sharply. 
" "Will you do tliis for me or not ? Please do," 
said the girl. '*I do so Avant to get away. 
They must want me ; they can't be so cruel as 
not to want me. Don't you think so ?" 

"They only want to spare you," said Baxter, 
but when she begged again he could not resist 
her any longer. "Will you like to go by the 
five o'clock train?" he asked. ] 

"Yes," said Felicia, eagerly. "Is that the 
soonest? Please come and fetch me." And 
Baxter said he would come, and then went to 
put off half a dozen engagements. He thought ! 
the gii'l would be better oif in a home, no mat- \ 
ter how sad, than vexing and chafing in the 
solitudes of Queen Square. [ 

And so it happened that Felicia came back 
to Harpington all of a sudden. She and Bax- 
ter scarcely spoke to each other during the three 
hours they were on the road. He had come to 
take care of her, and not to make himself agreea- 
ble ; and he conscientiously read the paper in a 
corner of the railway carriage. Fay looked at 
him once or twice, surprised at first by this si- | 
lence, and then she watched the fields flit by 
the telegraph-posts, the cows, the cottages with 
their smoking chimneys and all their inhabit- 
ants ; and so they sped along from one county 
to another; here and there came a shining 
hamlet, now a gig passing a bridge, now a wom- 
an carrying a bundle. Felicia tried to follow 
some of the people with her mind, but another 
cow, another gig, another tree-stump, would 
come and drive out the remembrance of the 
last. Fay, as I have said, had almost put away 
the remembrance of the night before. She had 
thought she should never be able to look at Bax- 
ter again to speak to him, but now she felt that 
they might be friends once more. He was 
changed, but Felicia was too full of her own 
thoughts to perceive this. What a strange pro- 
gression of new feelings and realizations had 
hold of her — visions of home — visions of London 
delights — visions of the sorrowful, terrible pres- 
ent, and of the happy past, and of the future of 
marriage, of loneliness, of doubtful hope. 

And so, if Baxter was changed and silent, 
Felicia, too, was clianged and silenced. There 
were some other people in the carriage who did 
not find out the two were travelling together. 
One old gentleman, interested by the pair of 
innocent, penetrating gray eyes that he caught 
scanning him, asked the young la^y if she was 
travelling alone, and if there was any thing he 
could do for her. Then for the first time Bax- 
ter looked up from his paper, and said in his 
blackest and stiffest manner that the lady was 
under his care. 

It was nearly eight o'clock when they got to 
the station. Baxter had telegraphed from Lon- 
don, and he expected to find Jim upon the plat- 
form ; but there was no Jim, no sign, and the 
only thing to do was to walk to the inn and or- 
der a fly. They waited under the rose-grown 
porch in the twilight. Every tiling seemed 
sweet, and still, and peaceful. A gardener be- 



longing to the inn was pumping water for the 
pretty old garden flowers — lilies, and lupins, 
and marigolds, and white honeysuckles ; the 
sky was sweet with sunset, and the air with per- 
fume. A couple of dusky figures stood in the 
middle of the street talking quietly ; an old 
woman came to tlie door of her cottage. This 
purple dusk was making every thing beautiful, 
and how fragrant the air was after tlie vapid 
London breath they had been living in ! 

They had a long, sweet, silent drive across 
the fields, and between dim horizons and wood- 
ed fringes. The evening star came and shone 
over the twilight silver and purple world before 
they got to their journey's end. Baxter was si- 
lently happy and so was Felicia, who, for a mile 
or two, had almost forgotten the sorrow to which 
she was travelling, in tlie peace and sweetness 
of the journey. But when the house appeared 
above the hedge at the turn of the road, her 
heart began to beat and every thing came back 
to her. 

" The gates are closed," said the girl, start- 
led, as they passed the front of the house. 

The gates were closed for the first time since 
Felicia could remember, and the ivy and wild 
creepers had been crushed and torn in the proc- 
ess. 

This one little incident, perhaps, brought all 
that happened more vividly to Felicia's mind 
than any thing else that had gone before. They 
stopped at the back door, the front gate being 
locked, and Aurelius desired the fly-man to wait, 
' and came with Felicia to see her safe into the 
house before he drove away. They crossed the 
stable-yard and the end of the garden, and so 
I reached the terrace along which were the win- 
dows, barred and fast, except one looking more 
] black than the i-est. And suddenly came a cru- 



el minute for Felicia, in which all the pain of 



parting, all the sadness into which she was go- 
ing, all the gloom of that great shut house and 
of her hopeless future, seemed realized and con- 
centrated. Baxter, too, looked up at the gloomy 

I walls behind which little Fay was about to dis- 
appear; there stood the hall, closed and black, 

I and he thought of the poor raving widowed heart 
aching within, and with a pang he thought of 

I the little white victim standing beside him. 
"Good-bye," he said, putting out his hand 

j quickly. 

" Oh, I am frightened," said Felicia, not tak- 

, ing it, not looking, and trembling and standing 
irresolute. " Oh, what shall I do?" 

"There is nothing to be afraid of," said Bax- 
ter, kindly. " I have seen a great many peoi)le 
die. It is a much more peaceful process tlian 

\ living. I don't think you need be afraid." 
Felicia sighed, but did not answer. 

"Look, is not that study window open?'' 
Baxter asked. 

I " Yes, but— but I could not go in there alone," 
said the girl, as with a shaking hand she tried 
to unfasten the door. "Don't go yet, please 
don't go," she said. 

"I will wait here as long as you like," said 



SOLA. 



Baxter. " Perhaps James will see me for a 
minute. You can send me word." 

"Yes," said Felicia. She had got the door 
open at last. Once more she said, "Please 
wait, please don't leave me yet. I will come 
back to you." She spoke in a shrill, nervous 
voice, and the words travelling through the si- 
lence, woke up James, who had fallen asleep on 
the study sofa, utterly worn out and tired after 
his journey, his sleepless day and night of agi- 
tation and excitement. Had he dreamt them? 
had he heard them? He did not know— he 
started from his sleep, from a vague dream of 
Baxter and Felicia in the garden outside. He 
sat up and listened — "Don't leave me yet! I 
will come back to you!" He heard her voice 
plainly ringing in his ears — was it to him she 
was speaking? Was it Felicia come to make 
him well and happy by her presence ? or was it 
Felicia speaking . to some one else ? Felicia 
false, Felicia lost to him forever ! 



XII. 

Poor Jim! It was when they were going 
down into the lock the day before that he had 
made up his mind to it, and told himself that 
cost what it might he must give up his darling. 
Felicia was not for such as him. She was too 
bright and brilliant a creature to mate with any 
but her own kind. 

Little Jim was a hero in his way. His whole 
life had been a forlorn hope. He had made up 
his mind, but in this feverish dream from which 
he was waking, he had forgotten his calmer self- 
decision and courage— only the natural pain was 
there, the jealousy, the humiliation, the heart- 
burning. Aurelius's telegram had come, and 
he had meant to go and meet them, but as he 
was waiting, turning over papers in the study, 
till the time should come, to start, he had fallen 
asleep. Miss Marlow was up stairs with her 
sister-in-law; the whole house was silent, and 
no one had come near the study, and Jim for 
the last hour or two had been lying in a fever, 
dreaming uneasy dreams and moaning in the 
deserted room. And now when he started 
wide awake from his sleep, he was wide awake, 
but dreaming still in a sort of way, forgetting 
all his resolutions, remembering only the fan- 
cies that had haunted his sleep. Felicia out- 
side with Baxter ! Ah false ! ah faithless ! 
As the door opened, and she came in, Jim 
liad groped his way to the table, and struck a 
light. 

" I knew you were there," he said, turning 
his haggard face to greet her. "Oh, Felicia, I 
was dreaming. Are you going to leave me, 
quick, tell me ? How could I bear it ? How 
can I bear it? It will kill me. I have little 
enough life ; you will take it all if you go." 

He looked so strange and so excited that his 
cousin was frightened. 

"Going, Jim? What do you mean?" 



"I heard you say so to some one outside," 
he went on, in his strange agitation. 

"Dear Jim," said Felicia, trembling still, 
"be quiet. Hush! pray hush ! See, lie down 
here. I — I won't leave you, " she said ; and a 
faint glow came into her pale cheeks. "Lie 
still. Don't be afraid. You have had some 
nightmare," faltered the girl, knowing full well 
that it had been no nightmare, but her own 
words, which he had overheard. 

" I thought I heard you say you were going," 
Jim said, still half distraught. "It was a dream 
then — I had fallen asleep. Oh, thank heaven ! 
Oh, my Felicia!" 

She soothed him, she quieted him with a hun- 
dred kind words and looks, and all the while her 
heart smote her. She was ashamed to meet his 
honest upturned loving glance. 

"Poor boy!" said Felicia, passing her cool 
hand across his forehead. "Lie still, dear,'' 
she said. "I am going for one minute. I 
shall come back to you." 

He sprang up with a frightened sort of cry. 

"Ah! now I know it was true," he said. 
"Felicia, Felicia! You are going. I shall 
wait and wait, and you will never come back." 

"I swear I will come back," said Felicia, 
earnestly, fixing her great gray eyes upon her 
cousin. 

A minute after, as Baxter stood waiting, lis- 
tening for the voices, Felicia appeared for one 
momentinthedarkness of the doorway. "Good- 
night, good-bye, and thank you," she said. "I 
am not afraid any more, and I am thankful I 
came," and she gave him her hand and was 
gone. 

"Did Baxter come back with you?" James 
asked, as Felicia came back to him. He seemed 
like himself again, calm and different, and with 
his own natural expression. " Have you sent 
him away ? It was a pity," he said. "A pity, 
a pity," he repeated, thinking, poor fellow, of 
himself as he spoke. "Dear," he said. "I 
think I was half asleep just now. I don't know 
what nonsense I talked. Forgive me." 

"You are quite tired and worn out," said 
Felicia. "You must go to bed, Jim, directly. 
May I go to grandmamma?" But James beg- 
ged her to wait, and he went and found Miss 
Marlow, and then he went to bed as he was 
bid. 

Miss Marlow was surprised to see the girl, 
but welcomed her kindly. " So Captain Baxter 
brought you? Well, I am glad you are come," 
and then she told Felicia a long long history of 
their coming home. 

The old lady was very gentle, and cried a lit- 
tle, and she came with the girl to her own little 
room, past the door of the state apartment where 
the poor old grandfather was lying. And Fay 
followed her about meekly, seeing all with her 
startled gray eyes. Aurelius was gone, but she 
did not mind. When every body else was so 
unhappy, Felicia accepted her own share with 
more resignation. Her grandmother would not 
see her — that was the thing which most troubled 



358 



SOLA. 



her. Jim was very ill — that was evident — she 
must do what she could to help him. And then, 
utterly wearied out, Felicia fell fast asleep, with 
all the trouble and doubt round about her, and 
the darkness and gloom of the night, and dreamt 
the hours peacefully away till the morning light 
came to awaken her. 



XIII. 

Two days more, and the closed gates were 
opened to let the old Squire's funeral pass 
through, travelling down the periwinkle walk, 
and followed by the steps of a few old neighbors. 
Baxter came to the church-yard, but did not 
come back to the house ; and then tiie blinds 
were drawn up, and the business of life began 
once more ; only Mrs. Marlow remained still 
in her room, and scarcely ever left it. The 
lawyers came to read the will. It was dated 
many years back. The house and the chief part 
of the estate had been left to Jim's father, and 
now consequently fell to the share of the young 
man himself. There was a jointure settled upon 
Mrs. Marlow, which (under a stringent clause) 
she was to forfeit if she married again. Felicia 
(whose mother had married an offending cousin) 
was only to have a hundred a year. Anothe 
later will had been prepared, but never signed ; 
it was much to the same effect as the first, only 
that the jointure was increased, and more in 
proportion to tlie bulk of the old man's property 
He had left nearly £6000 a year behind him, 
and Jim, who had never until now possessed i 
spare sovereign to do as he liked with, had money 
in stocks and land, and check-books, and credit 
without stint. . . . 

James was closeted all day with different peo. 
pie, lawyers, and agents, and tenants ; and one 
day a doctor came over from the neighboring 
town, and Jim declared next day that he had 
business in London. Little Lucy, who happi 
ed to meet Felicia that day, told her her papa 
had gone to town with Mr. Marlow. 

James came back, and Felicia tried to think 
that he was the same, but she felt a difference. 
He was busy arranging, docketing, putting away. 
People come and went; Felicia scarcely spoke 
to him. She dined with him (Felicia was sur- 
prised to see that Jim could carve), but imme- 
diately after dinner James would go away into 
the study. 

As for Aunt Mary Anne, being naturally of 
cheerful and gregarious disposition, she found it 
all very dull, and packed up at the end of a 
week and went off to Cheltenham for a change. 

The day Miss Marlow left, Felicia begged 
her grandmother timidly to let her be with her 
a little more. 

"No, no," said Mrs. Marlow, with a little 
shiver, "Pray don't ask it; go — you agitate 
me." 

So Felicia went away, pained and forlorn, 
flitting about with a feeling of disgrace, and the 



strange uneasy sense of being some tamed ani- 
mal that had lost its master and was suddenly 
set free. 

One day — it was a little thing, but she took 
it foolishly to heart — her crystal bracelet, that 
she liked to wear, came unclasped and fell .off 
her arm. She went roaming about a whole 
morning looking for it in the empty rabbit- 
house, in the kitchen-garden, on the terrace 
walk. 

James, coming out of the study for a little 
turn on the terrace, was struck by Felicia's 
scared, woe-begone face. 

She had been sitting on the step for half an 
hour in the sun. 

"Fay, what is the matter?" said Marlow, 
in his old familiar voice, as he came up to her. 

"Nothing," said Felicia, looking up. 

Nothing ! That was just the answer to his 
question. Nothing to hope, to fear, to love, to 
try for. She did not think that James loved 
her now : she knew her grandmother had taken 
a strange hatred and aversion to her presence. 

"Notbing?" said James, looking gravely at 
her troubled face. 

"I have lost my pretty bracelet," said Feli- 
cia ; " but that is nothing, of course. And 
every thing is horrid, but it does not matter." 

"But is every thing horrid?" said James, 
sighing. "You have lost a bracelet," he con- 
tinued, absently, feeling in his pockets. "I 
picked up one this morning on the landing." 
And he pulled out Felicia's beloved gold and 
crystal ring. 

She seized it with a little cry of delight. " Oh, 
how glad I am !" she said. " Thank you, James ; 
how clever of you to find it." And she began 
ftastening it on her slim wrist again. 

"How clever of you to let it fall upon the 
landing," he said, smiling. " And now I want 
to talk to you. Fay," James went on, sitting 
down beside her on the step. Then he was si- 
lent for a little, then Jie began very nervously : 
" I have been thinking about a good m.any things 
these last few days," he said, "and happiness 
has been one of the things. Don't you think, 
dear, we must not care about it too much ?" 

"Not care!" his cousin said. "How can 
wo not care when we do?" 

James looked more and more nervous. 

" 'Wo bow to heaven that ruled it so, ' " he 
said, hesitating, quoting from a lay preacher. 

" I saw Dr. when I was in London, and he 

told me that matters were more serious with me 
than I had imagined. I don't know how much 
more, or what may be in store for us ; but. Fay, 
you and I — our two lives, I mean — belong to 
something greater than our own happiness, at 
least one hopes so ; for one's own happiness 
seems a stupid thing to live for altogether, 
doesn't it, dear ?" 

Felicia's circling eyes were fixed upon his. 
She was twisting her gold bracelet round and 
round. Jim looked paler and paler as he 
spoke. 

"I think," he said, " our duty in life, Felicia 



SOLA. 



359 



— yours and mine — is not to think whether we 
are very happy or not, or satisfied" — and the 
poor fellow's voice ached a little as he spoke — 
"and, perhaps, the mistake we have both made 
has been that we have thought a little too much 
ofourselvesandoitrown feelings,and not enough 
of something beyond tliem. . . ." 

"Dear, dear James!" said Felicia, and her 
eyes filled up with tearg. 

James went on steadilv, holding her hand in 
his,— 

"And I have been thinking that we have 
both other things to do just now than marrying 
and giving in marriage. I must go away and 
try and get well, to live to do a few of these 
things ; and you must — darling Fay, don't cry 
— take care of grandmother, and be patient with 
her, and wait here, and love me a little. And 
then," resolved to finish what he had to say, he 
went on hastily, "There is poor Baxter, who 
wants to come with me ; and some day, if he 
comes back to you, Fay, I think you would be 
doing wisely to try and make him happy. Per- 
haps you may not like to think of it just now, 
but in 'a little time — " Jim's voice faltered — 
"One can not foretell the future — " 

"Oh, Jim, what a hateful, hateful creature I 
am!" burst out Felicia, covering her face with 
her hands. " I have not deserved any thing, and 
you want me to have every thing; but I Avill 
never — never — " 

"Hush, hush!" said Jim, gravely; "take 
care of grandmother, and don't make any vows, 
and — and — trust me a little, Felicia," he added, 
smiling a little sadly himself as he got up to go 
away. 

And so Jim cut the knot that bound him — 
cut it, and all the diflBculties that had beset him 
of late were vanquished. No one had guessed 
at the depth of his secret grief, and the pain of 
the parting — not Aurelius, not Felicia, looking 
up into his calm face, not Jim himself, who 
thought himself a foolish stupid fellow, but no 
hero ; only it was all over now. 

It was the last of the late summer days. As 
he stood, he heard the distant thrill of the birds, 
the drone of buzzing insects : the warm touch 
of the sun came falling upon them both. A 
feeling came to Jim as if he was looking at Fa}', 
with her sweet upturned face, for the last time ; 
and it was in truth their real parting, though 
he did not sail for some days later. And yet, 
of the two at that minute, it was not Jim avIio 



was most unhappy. " The light of his true heart 
was shining in his eyes. Felicia never forgot 
his look : a man of gentle will, standing there;, 
that summer's day, with a gift in his hand, price- 
less, a life's gift, a true heart's love. And Jim, 
as he left her, felt that he loved her as she ought 
to be loved. Loved her enough to leave her 
with a benediction. He was a sick, and dull, 
and stupid fellow ; but he had ])layed his part 
like an honest man. Felicia was the only wom- 
an he ever loved, hers the only hand he ever 
cared to grasp; but while he held it, he had 
held it by force, and when he loosened his hold, 
the fair hand fell away. And he was content 
that it should be so, and he wisely accepted tlie 
very pain as part of his love. 

There is something in life which seems to tell 
us that no failures, no mistakes, no helpless- 
nesses make failure ; no successes, no triumphs 
make success. And so James walked away 
victorious, leaving the poor vanquished victress 
alone upon the sunny steps. Was it Felicia's 
wish to be the only one ? It was granted, and 
she did not care for it. She was alone now, 
but free. She stood watching the young fellow 
as he walked away. Jim's heart was sad enough, 
but at rest. Felicia's was beating with passion- 
ate gratitude, with anger against herself, with a 
dim new hope for the future, and, at the same 
time, with a great new love and regret for the 
past, for the tie that was now broken forever. 
It was a pang that lasted her for all her life. 

Later that day, as she was passing through 
the morning-room, she happened to catch siglit 
of the old Sola plate through the glass of the 
china cupboard, and with one of her quick im- 
pulses, Felicia opened the glass-doors, took it 
quickly oflf the shelf, and flung it to the ground, 
where it lay broken in many pieces at her feet. 
. . . . Is this the end of the story? Does any 
story finish while the flame of life is alight, 
burning up, and reviving and changing from 
day to day. Fay's story was a blank for a time 
after Jim left her in charge at Harpington; a 
blank from all those things which had seemed 
to her so all-important. In after-life her love- 
stoiy may have begun again. But that was 
when she was alone in the world ; when those 
who loved her best were gone ; and Baxter, com- 
ing back after years of absence, met her as of old 
— lonely, sad, glad, eager, and unchanged, flit- 
ting between the gray walls of the old Harping- 
ton House. 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



MORETTPS CAMPANULA, 



' That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), 
riyins; between the cold moon and the earth, 
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took 
At a fair vestal, throned by the west ; 
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his how, 
As it should iiierce a hundred thousand hearts : 
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon; 
And the imperial vot'ress passed on, 
In maiden meditation, fancy-free. 
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 
It fell upon a little western flower- 
Before, milk-white; now purple M'ith love's wound — 
And maidens call it, love-in-idleness. 
Fetch me that flower. . . ." — A Midsummer-Night'' s Bream. 



If you could see Dorchester House, age-worn, 
sun-burnt, and wind-beaten, with many wood- 
en shutters flapping in the sun, with strange 
sweet southern tufts of weed springing along its 
cornices, and from one and another marble win- 
dow-ledge, house-leeks with soft pink heads, 
delicate feathery grasses ; here and ^there a 
trailing nasturtium hanging like a fringe and 
swinging against the wall, and in the court-yard 
an orange-tree and a cactus or two, and a mount- 
ain-ash with its burning flame of scarlet berries 
— you would see the palace of tiie family of Pa- 
vis, one of the oldest in South Tyrol. It stands 
in a little sun-baked town, half-way between 
Italy and Germany, among the Venetian Alps, 
and its many shutters open out upon a green and 
deserted-looking piazza, where a donkey feeds, 
and women spread their linen strips to bleach. 
.... There is a hotel upon the piazza, and 
a coppersmith's shop, from whence comes a mo- 
notonous sound from the blows of the great ham- 
mer ; and tlien on the opposite side of the green 
stands a church, vast, and empty, and tawdry, as 
many of these North of Italy churches are, of 
which the silent dusty gloom and emptiness sug- 
gest a curious contrast to the fervor of North 
Tyrol. Here the vast wide open doors show 
fading deceptions of pasteboard and tinsel orna- 
ment, and admit a dazzle of dust-flickered light 
into the gloom. Worshippers are scarce nowj 
but in the time of the father of the present Count 
de Pavis they were more numerous. The Count- 
ess and her daughters were often to be seen in 



* Morotti's Campanula is a fiower that grows among the 
Alpa on precipitous rocks. 



their places. In these churches brazen plates 
are affixed to the benches with names engraved 
thereupon: those of Claudia, Irminia, Valeria de 
Pavis, are still to be deciphered upon the worn 
brass plate that marks the seat of the Pavis 
family, though Claudia, the mother, is long since 
dead, and Irminia and Valeria have married and 
left their old home in the mountain city. An- 
other name, that of Saverio de Pavis, is also in- 
scribed upon the family plate. He is the own- 
er of the palazzo, but it is said that he does not 
keep up his mother's pious practices. 

One day I wandered into the church : the 
only worshippers were two girls kneeling near a 
small open side-door. The light fell upon their 
youthful heads, upon an altar ornamented with 
cotton laces and pasteboard vases : outside the 
door was a bright wliite wall, a creeping pump- 
kin with great starry golden flower and panto- 
mime-like fruit, and the lizards darting from 
stone to stone. The girls came away present- 
ly, passing out by this white wall to the piazza 
again, where they had tied up their donkey at 
the copperman's shop. 

The coppersmith, with whom I had had some 
dealing, was a kind old fellow. He seemed to 
love his great saucepans, over which he might 
now see the two pretty girls' faces, and the don- 
key's head, and the Palazzo Pavis, and the 
mountain beyond ; and he nodded a friendly 
greeting as we all passed together. 

How delicately lovely the mountains looked, 
in fair ridges round about the little town : strange 
peaks of dolomite, crushed, shivered, splintered 
sharp, with a net-work of lines and modellings, 
of light and passing shadows ; now a cleft, now 
a pinnacle standing out sharp, now a shadowy 



304 



MORETTl'S CAMPANULA. 



blackveilhanping from some topmost point; and 
then see it melt away, and the shining crystallized 
peaks flash quivering and clear. ... It was 
a wonderful fairy country through which we had 
been wandering for ten days past — among alps 
and rocky passes — wild fairies they surely are 
who inhabit them : mossy trunks hang over 
precipices ; thousands of flowers shine, sweet 
autumn cyclamen, starry parnassus ; above and 
below, the waters dash, filtering through rocky 
cups, and foaming crystal among the fringing 
leaves and mosses. Green alps, too, flow from 
rock to rock along the mountain side where the 
gray cows are feeding; tranquil little villages 
perch along the wandering track, whence dark 
eyes watch you as you pass on your way to the 
smiling valley below. Strangers are strangers 
still, and not yet tourists on the road. The 
host greets you with friendly gladness; the 
fresh straw beds are covered with the winter- 
spun linen. The fare is scant sometimes, but 
quaint and good. For the chamois hunters are 
out upon their raids, the valleys are spread with 
waving fields of Indian corn ; there are trout in 
the lakes and streams. Along the road the 
pumpkins are swelling in the sun, and the flax 
grows with its fringed plumes, or hangs drying 
in yellow bundles from the eaves of the cot- 
tages. 

All this smiling land lies along the frontier 
between Austria and Italy. We had crossed the 
line a dozen times on our way to the little sun- 
baked town, which seemed to us dreary, and 
tattered, and saddening, after the prosperous 
villages. We were going on again that day to 
the neighborhood of the Marmolata, the noblest 
mountain of the Rhastian range, and thence 
home by Botzen, where civilization begins. 

I, for one, do not wish to cry out against it. 
The jolts and diflSculties in the world of civilized 
life are mental, instead of physical. The prob- 
lems are human. There are by-ways and bold 
ascents, precipices to skirt, deep and distracting 
as any of these. Opinions grow instead of crops 
of Indian corn ; sympathies and aspirations daz- 
zle us and thrill us, in the loneliness of our souls, 
as do still mountain ranges or wide-spreading 
horizons. The music of civilized life is not in 
the song of birds, or the flow of streams, or the 
tinkling of flocks. Alas ! it is a music sadder 
and more boisterous and more incomplete ; but 
it may be there is a deeper tone in it than in the 
calm self-satisfaction of pastoral completeness. 
Because the cries are loud, the instruments un- 
equal to the tunes they should play, shall people 
decry it ? Is Nature divine ? Perhaps in the 
darkest London slum, where dirt and sorrow 
and filth are massed together, there may be a 
deeper divinity than in the widest, sweetest val- 
ley where sheep are browsing, evening lights 
shining on the hills, hamlets sprinkling in still 
nooks, crops ripening in their season, and way- 
side crosses casting their shade across the pre- 
cipitous road. 



II. 



Under the dark entrance-porch of the hotel 
our luggage was piled, and H. and my ncphcAV 
Tom were looking out for me. The carriage 
had not come, and all my Italian, such as it 
was, was wanted to urge the stout old padrona 
with the garnet necklace to wake up from a 
sort of trance, and send for it. " When we 
pleased ; when we pleased. Ah ! we were go- 
ing on to C . The Count had ordered the 

carriage. It should come back for us. There 
was no hurry — no hurry." But here a tall, pale- 
faced young man, with spectacles, with a straw 
hat, and a green case for plants slung across his 
shoulders, came striding hastily into the hotel. 
He nearly tripped up over the sti-ap of my neph- 
ew's knapsack : he flushed vi\) impatiently, and 
kicked it away. " I have come to say I shall 
not want the carriage," he cried, in a harsh, 
quick voice. "Supper? No. Ishallnotsup 
here to-night." 

" Then Beppo can conduct these gentry by 
the equipage," cried the old padrona, brighten- 
ing up for a single moment to a gleam of intel- 
ligence. " Your servant, Signer Conte." 

The young Count, still impatient, shrugged 
his shoulders ; then, recollecting himself, raised 
his straw hat to us, as if to make up for the 
shrug, and began striding off" as quick as he 
could go, flying along with an odd, swinging 
walk. 

" He is an original," said the hostess, speak- 
ing in her sleep. " He only thinks of herbs — 
always herbs — he studies them from one season's 
end to another. Ah, his father was not of that 
sort." 

In a few minutes more a little old trembling 
conveyance, with swinging handles, bits of 
string and broken straps, and a youthful but in- 
competent driver, shivered and ambled up to 
the door. Our way led through a melancholy 
defile, where the white road wound in long zig- 
zags, overhanging the depths below ; while the 
peaks seemed to crowd higher and closer with a 
wild melancholy monotony, to which the moan 
of the torrent flowing in its white stony bed, and 
straggling between arid flats, seemed to respond. 
In the distance, far, far ahead of us, down in a 
dip of the valley, we could see a donkey and 
some one following, and at a turn of the road 
we met a little calf, driven along the pass by a 
peasant-woman. It looked at us and at the 
horse with lively and suspicious interest; but 
the calf and the poor old horse were respectively 
urged on by their drivers, who nodded as they 
passed. The calf- woman was worn -faced, 
brown, and kind-eyed. She wore a bead neck- 
lace and took off" her hat. I don't know why it 
all seemed so dreary to me, like a presentiment 
of impending ill. It was but a fancy, for no 
harm came, beyond a variety of bumps, and jerks, 
and lurches over into the abyss by which we 
were travelling, so numerous and alarming, 
that H. exclaimed in horror, and Tom, indig- 
nant, jumped down at last and led the horse down 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



the steeper places; while the vivacious j'oung 
driver amused hiraself by winding and unwind- 
ing the drag at the wrong minute, with immense 
energy and many exclamations. 

Our advance was not very quick, but by de- 
grees we gained upon the donkey, and as we 
got nearer we saw that there was a young sol- 
dier with the two girls, whom I recognized as 
those I had seen in the church. One girl was 
sitting on the donkey's back, the other walking 
ahead, with a free, striding peasant step. Botli 
had their great fair plaits pinned round with 
many long pins like little arrows. The pedes- 
trian wore a conical hat on the top of her plaits ; 
she had white sleeves, a black bodice and a 
shirt, and a coral necklace, and her dress was a 
little above that of the peasants. As she walk- 
ed she looked up and around in a free yet dream- 
ing way. Her companion on the donkey had 
discarded the white country sleeves altogether. 
She was small and delicate-looking, with beauti- 
ful red hair and brown eyes ; her dress was only 
black alpaca : she, too, wore a coral necklace. 
The young soldier spoke to her now and then, 
but she scarcely answered him : they were evi- 
dently brother and sister, from their likeness 
and peculiar red locks. The donkey tripped 
along lively and cai-eful ; every now and then 
the young people called it by name: "Hu, 
Bruno ! Ehu, Bruno !" Bruno seemed to be an 
independent little fellow, with a very decided 
will of his own. At one place, in the descent, 
we all came together to a stream that flows 
across the road into the torrent below. Bruno 
and the soldier seemed to have some difference 
as to tlie place where it should be forded. The 
girl jumped oft' in a fright ; the soldier tugged ; 
Bruno pulled, and set his fore paws. Some one 
cried out from above ; the soldier looked round ; 
Bruno seized the moment, jerked the reins out 
of his leader's hand, and was over before his 
master could come near him. "Look, Mary," 
said my sister-in-law, " there is that young man 
from the Hotel." He was coming scrambling 
down the side of the pass, leaping with wonder- 
ful agility from one splintered rock to another. 
Every movement looked wild and clumsy and un- 
premeditated, and yet his progress was secure and 
unfailing. It seemed a horrid-looking place and 
impossible to get over ; but there he was in a 
minute, safe on the road, and hurrying after the 
little party, with his swinging green canteen be- 
hind him. 

"Well," said Tom, my nephew, " I couldn't 
have done that better myself." (Tom was a 
sailor for some years, but he came into a for- 
tune and is a country gentleman now, and only 
exerts himself once in a hundred years or so, 
when my sister-in-law drags him abroad.) 

The athlete joined the little party, and after 
walking with them a short way, suddenly left 
them, flying oft' at a sharp ridge of rock and 
disappearing by degrees. We had got to take 
an interest in them all by this time. Bruno 
completely won our hearts by a last sudden dash 
he made at a haystack that was coming walking 



along on two blue worsted legs and brown knee- 
breeches : he overpowered his conductor and got 
a good bite of sweet dry hay before any one could 
prevent him. The hay was going to a little 
stony lodge on the wayside, from whence a 
raven and flamingo maiden stepped out to see 
us pass. Then we began to ascend, and left our 
fellow-travellers and Bruno behind us, convers- 
ing with the apparition ; and the dismal gorge 
came to an end at last in fields of Indian corn, ' 
in a tattered village with falling balconies and 
blackened gables, and fences, and children with 
wistful faces swarming out to see us pass. 

We all breathed more freely as the road 
climbed up again by the mountain-side into a 
wider, fresher world, while a lovely green valley 
opened, and high cliff's came rising from still green 
alps, with evening clouds like bubbles trembling 
along their ridges ; and then, still passing on, 
we presently reached a terrible valley, where a 
hundred years ago the crest of a mountain 
thundered from its height, crushing houses and 
people and flocks in its fall — crasliing up the 
river, and creating a calm blue lake. Great 
masses lie scattered as they fell, for who can 
raise prostrate mountains ? But they are wreath- 
ed and pine-crowned, and their fierce edges are 
softened by the sweet-spreading green veil which 
hangs over all this Alpine country : a veil which 
only seems rent here and there by the sharp 
rocky points that burst through it. 



III. 

•'Presently a maid 

Enters with the liquor, 
(Half a pint of ale 

Frothing in a beaker). 
Gads ! I didn't know 

What my beating heart meant: 
Hebe's self I thought 

Entered the apartment. 
As she came she smiled, 

And the smile bewitching, 
On my word and honor. 

Lighted all the kitchen!" 

We were only going a short day's journey to 

C , at the other end of the blue lake, and it 

was still light when we reached the village. 
There was a cheerful sound of music as we 
came down into the street, and an echo of one 
of the Alpine chants that the young men catch 
up and troll out with great skill, spirit, and 
good tune, and presently we met a row of five 
young fellows walking arm-in-arm towards the 
town, with plumes and flowers in their Tyrolese 
hats, short sleeves, and long flowered waistcoats, 
loudly chanting their evening song. It was a 
feast-day, our driver told us, a feast-day as far 
as the bridge ; (where, by the way, he sent us 
over, fortunately, in a place where the earth 
was heaped up to support the planks, so that the 
horse was able to pull us safe back again). 
All the white shirts had turned out in honor of 
St. Bartholomew, the little children had their 
best clean faces on, the mothers sat in their 
doorways resting from their heavy burdens, the 



306 



lilORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



fathers smoked silver-topped pipes, the young are singing as they sit at a little table, and we 
men walked about arm-in-arm, as I have said, see their glasses filling among the red and yel- 
and a grand gameof;>a//o?ze was goingonin the low cloves that are falling from the window- 
village street. Our arrival distracted some sill. 

triflers, but not so the real players of the game. Clatter— clatter! " Here is the donkey," 
The marker stood under an old arch with his says Tom, looking out of window, and we heard 
two strange little wooden implements. Thef a sound of little hoofs, exclamations, embraces, 
balls flew high over the house-tops, rolling down cheerful girls' voices, and presently the padrona 
and dro])ping from the wide-eaved roofs, some- , comes in with flushed happy cheeks to ask us 
times flving in at a window and violently thrown ' what we would have for our meal, 
out again — the young men leaped after them, "I should have come sooner, but my son is 
and the peojile shouted in excitement. | just arrived," she said. My daughter Fortuna- 

These Tyrolese houses are stables to enter I ta, and Joanna my servant, went into Agordo 
by, with horses and carriages and cows stowed to meet him.'' 

away; but as you mount the stairs each floor; "Is he q, soldier?" said H., smiling. "Was 
improves. The first floor is the kitchen and | there a donkey?" 

the public room, where you catch a glimpse of " Yes, yes," said the beaming signora. "The 
peaked hats, of gaiters, of bottles of wine and gentry must have passed them. It is two years 
shirt-sleeves. The hostess comes out of her since I had seen him ; now he comes home be- 

kitchen to gi-eet you, and takes you up to the cause I on business." And here her face 

second floor, which is quieter, fresher, and with fell. "A mother's heart is in many places," 
flowers in the balcony at the end of the passage, | says the padrona with a sort of little chronic 
where you dine. At Signora Sarti's " Black sigh. 

Eagle,'' the flowers were brighter, the bedrooms 1 Tom, who was very hungry, and not so much 
lighter and more comfortable than any we had interested as we were in these family details, 
yet seen. Tiie rooms were clean, great pots of now asked somewhat inconsequently if there was 
carnation stood promiscuously on tlie stove, an^ any fish to be had for dinner, 
in the corner and in the window of the sitting- | "Fish ? No. The fisherman had to be told 
room ; we saw wooden benches against the j the day before, and then he went out at sunrise 
wall, wooden floors, some odds and ends of poles, and caught it; but " (hesitating) "a friend had 
and then in the bedrooms huge beds, so high sent some wild partridges, and if we liked she 
that you had to leap from ledge to ledge to ^ would roast a couple. Would we choose white 
reach them. A back-door from our bedrooms wine or black?" 



With the white wine came our dinner : 

1st. A rice soup with little sausages floating 



2d. Slices of a sort of fried plum-pudding. 
3d. Biftek. This is a mince with a sweet 



opened upon the outer wooden balcony running 
along tlie back of tlie house. The balcony look- 
ed out upon what they call the piazzetina — a 
little grimy back-yard sort of place, with six 
dozen arched doors and windows at all possible 
angles, looking over and under one another. ' garlicky batter, and polenta to eat with it. 
Here, too, were more carnation-pots and dried j 4th. The partridges, with i)runes. 
wisps of flax under the roof hanging out to dry. 5th. A sort of white cream-cheese eaten with 

Before and behind us were casements with cinnamon, 
wide-open wooden shutters through which we j Tom complained that it was all puddings, but 
could see into the lives of the people. Strange he eat them with good appetite ; and then we 
little framed pictures of unknown existences. I went and drank our coflFee in the window. 
How much can four feet by three of one's daily ; watching the lights gleam away on the mount- 
habits disclose ? Not much, perhaps, in a ain-tops above the roofs. I could see some one 
world where every thing is clianging and flit- down below also supping off wild partridges at 
ting ; but here, where day by day the sun shines ' a sort of little terrace where his table M'as set. 
upon the same peaceful* sights and customs, it From the number before him, and the way he 
may be enough to give a hint of them. There cut them up, I guessed that he was the sportsman 
was the old tailor sitting on Ins bed on the sec- j who had brought them down. It seemed to me 
ondfloor — there was a daily dinner laid at a cer- that I knew the green box lying on the table, 
tain window at twelve o'clock— there were the and I also recognized in the sportsman our wan- 
three washerwomen living on the first floor, dering Count. 
They looked out of window, stretching their 
long brown necks with the bead necklaces, their 
wisps of hair were pinned up like the plaits we 
had admired on the road, with aureoles of silver 
pins. (As their brown necks were constantly 
stretching through the window, the aureoles 
beamed down not unfrequently upon the passer 



IV. 

We had, strange to say, an acquaintance liv- 
ing at C , an old lady whom we had met a 

year before drinking the waters at a waterina:- 



by in the street below.) Now comes music place in the Alps, where H. had been sent by a 

again. An air out of the " Trovatore," an air German doctor. She was only a humble sort 

out of the "Dame Blanche." The musicians of companion, she told us, to another old lady, 

are two soldiers in the Austrian uniform : they who owned the country-house in which they 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA, 



367 



spent their summer months. She seemed to be 
loved and trusted by her employer ; and able to 
do as she liked, and she had begged us to come 
and see her if we passed her way. She assured 
us that their garden was well worth a visit. 
We had taken a liking to the gentle, intelligent, 
somewhat melancholy woman, with her simple 
Italian ways and ready sympathies. Signora 
Elizabetta della Santa was tall, with many 
bones and wrinkles, and a few black and gray 
hairs. She spoke slowly in a deep guttural 
voice ; she was dressed like an old wallflower, 
in dingy yellows and greens, for the most part. 
This evening, strolling out along the street, it 
occurred to me to look her up, and when I came 
back to the hotel I thought I would ask for news 
of my old acquaintance. I went up stairs in 
the twilight to the landing beneath ours; it lead 
to the terrace, where Fortunata and Joanna 
were both standing talking to the Count. He 
seemed to be emptying his vasculum of all sorts 
of plants, ferns, roots, and flowers, and I did not 
like to disturb them. Tonina, the padrona's eld- 
est daughter, was very busy in the general room, 
coming and going from one table to another, 
with her leathern bag of office strapped to her 
waist. I looked into the kitchen to see if the 
mother was there. Yes, the padrona was stand- 
ing in the last sunlit window with her son. I 
noticed that Mario, as they called him, was look- 
ing odd and flushed, and that his honest face 
was as red as his hair, but I put it all down to 
the evening glow, and asked my question with- 
out any thought of trouble. 

"What does the Signora ask?" said the pa- 
dronn, hastily. "Signora della Santa and the 
IMarchesa are here ; they live close by. Mario 
will — no, Fortunata will — you turn to the right 
by the bridge ; you — " but here suddenly her 
voice failed, and the poor thing burst out crying. 
"It's nothing, nothing," she went on, volubly. 
"Don't ask; don't ask; and oh! do not tell 
the girls that I am troubled ; they at least shall 
never know what a cruel — " Mario, who was 
hissing and spluttering between his teeth, stop- 
ped her with a kind impatience. " He is here," 
said the poor thing, recovering herself, and wip- 
ing her eyes. " He will take care of us, and all 
will be well now." And she laid her hand on 
her son's arm and looked at me, and then at his 
carrot-face, with wistful tender eyes. 

I went away sorry to have come in, and left 
them in their window. There was a roar of 
laughter from the tap-room as I passed. The 
Count seemed to have done with his botanizing, 
and to be beginning a course of astronomy from 
the little terrace. Up stairs I found Tom with 
a pipe, and H., who was mucl» interested when I 
told her of the padrona's unknown trouble. " I 
am afraid money matters must be wrong, "said 
H. But there was no sign of any want of pros- 
perity in the little household. Fresh piles of 
linen were carried in from the bleaching-field, 
cows came dragging stores of hay for the stable, 
bare-legged assistants brought fruit and corn and 
wine, like people in the Bible. The padrona 



was walking about with a carpenter early next 
morning devising alterations, and I found For- 
tunata displaying a perfect store of ribbons and 
laces she had bought for Tonina in Agordo the 
day before. Tonina, the eldest daughter, wore 
a gold brooch and earrings, and two horns of 
black hair ; she was engaged to be married, and 
was shortly to depart, earrings and all, for the 
town where her intended was employed. Toni- 
na was a big handsome young woman, with a 
perfect passion for dress. I never heard her 
speak with interest on any other subject. She 
would waylay us, feel our gowns, settle our bon- 
net-strings ; she was forever straggling into our 
rooms and trying on our clothes. 

I did not care for Antonina at all, but little 
Fortunata, with her sweet, quick, gentle ways, 
was irresistible. She was spoiled by them all, 
and she seemed to me like a little brownie at 
work, sparing her mother, helping Joanna, and 
stirring about us with a kind energy. She could 
sing all sorts of songs, mountain catches, and 
opera tunes too. She had brown startled eyes 
and red hair, plaits upon plaits that Joanna used 
to put up with the silver pins in a sort of true- 
lover's knot every morning. She used to be up 
quite late, till midniglit and even later, and 
again at si.x in the morning this young woman 
was about — often at four if any early traveller 
was starting. "Tonina would never get up," 
Joanna said, shrugging her shoulders. 

But the person who most interested me in the 
household was the padrona, with iier dark sweet 
anxious face and her tender care for her chil- 
dren. The woman was a born lady, whatever 
her station in life might be. I liked to see her 
receiving her guests, with a gracious courtesy 
that was shyly returned by funny red-fixced, 
blear-eyed men with knee-breeches and conical 
hats, coming to drink^'ino nero, and slouching 
young conscripts, half-shy, half-proud, with their 
flowers and numbers stuck into their caps. If 
there was any disturbance, the padrona would 
walk boldly in and quell it witli instant meas- 
ures. The gentle decision witli whicli, on one 
occasion, Bcppo was summoned to assist one of 
these young fellows out of the house amused me. 
It was a handsome, fair-haired bo}-, dressed in 
green, with a great bunch of pink roses, and 
neat, white knitted hose. With a sudden yell, 
he tore oif his gay hat and flung it on the ground, 
trolling out something between a hymn and a 
drinking-song in a hoarse, tipsy voice. The 
padrona laid her hand on his shoulder. Her 
grave look seemed to steady him. "Angelo 
Soya," she said, "enough of this ; go home, my 
boy." And Angelo actually got up and disap- 
peared without a word. 

Italians, if they trust you, will speak of them- 
selves and their feelings with an openness that 
is touching to people of a more reserved habit. 
Very soon the signora spoke to me of impend- 
ing anxiety, of Fortunata, and her eyes would 
fill with tears of love and care. Something was 
amiss in the little household ; good and aflfec- 
tionate as they all were, and tenderly devoted 



368 



MOKETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



as was the mother, she had not been ahle, even 
in that lonely mountain-inclosed village, to keep 
her young ones safe and away from harm and 
evil speaking. Joanna's indignant fealty, Mario's 
manly protection, what is of avail against spy- 
ing eyes and spiteful tongues, and three long 
brown necks stretched out ? I could have wrung 
them with pleasure when I knew the harm they 
had done. The rest of the household consisted 
of a wild undermaid called Jacoma, of Beppo 
the old man, and numberless assistants, with 
bare legs and short petticoats, appearing and 
disappearing, carrying tubs, gourds, great bas- 
kets of Indian corn, inflated pig-skins, and what 
not. Labor is cheap in these parts, and garments 
are dear. This was hard upon Tonina. In 
houses where every thing is made at home — 
soap, bread, wine, linen, cheese, etc., there is, 
of course, an infinity to see to. They had a 
farm from whence provisions came ; they had 
granaries, fruit-stores. I could see sacks heap- 
ed and heaped in the store-rooms on the ground- 
floor, and often there, too, was Joanna at work 
among them with an assistant barelegs. 



Joanna seemed to have a temper of her own 
I was passing the open door of one of those 
ground store-rooms next morning on my way 
to join H. on the hill-side, when I heard Joanna 
rating her unlucky assistant at the pitch of her 
voice. Barelegs answered, tossing her head. 
Joanna, with a sort of shrill contemptuous whist- 
ling noise, orders barelegs oft"; and finally the 
poor creature slinks away with a basket full of 
polenta meal on her head, leaving Joanna tri- 
umphant. # 

"What was it?" said Mario, who had been 
standing in the door with his usual long weedy 
cigar in his mouth. " Joanna, don't scold poor 
Jacoma." 

"Ah! you pity La Jacoma," said Joanna, 
sharply. "Noav Mario has come back he is to 
set every thing right. Go and console her, and 
ask her if she does not deserve my indigna- 
tion." 

" What the devil is it all about ?" says Mario. 
"It is the work of devils," she repeated. 
" Something that she ought never to have lis- 
tened to," cried Joanna, still in a fury. "I 
will not have her trouble the mistress. Do you 
hear?" 

Mario's face changed ; he seemed to under- 
stand her as he too marched off". Joanna, who 
was in a downright passion, went on violently 
tying and shaking the big sacks, but more than 
once she stopped to stamp off her fury, and to 
shake her conical hat in anger at some one out- 
side in the street. 

Joanna was a character— a loyal rebel belong- 
ing to the dynasty of Sai-ti. Fortunata seemed 
to be the object of her blind devotion, the others 
the victims of it. She was a handsome girl ; her 



teeth were like milk, her fair hair was pinned up 
like her mistress's, but she wore three or four 
ittle short sprays or frizzes over her forehead 
and cheeks, and I hardly ever saw her without 
her hat. Tliere was a melancholy look in her 
blue eyes, which contrasted oddly with her broad 
smiles and childish gapes. She was curious 
and clumsy. She asked me endless questions 
about myself, my family. She would give a 
certain solemn shake of the head when she was 
puzzled, as if there were profundities unexplored 
into which she did not choose to inquire : such 
as the countries beyond Germany, the railways, 
the strangers who were beginning to come over the 
mountains to the valleys, where they came from, 
and their watches, Avhat was to be done to pro- 
cure them butcher's meat. Joanna looked stu- 
pid, but she was really full of cleverness. She 
could have thought and reasoned if she had 
chosen, and she had real flashes of genius at 
times when any thing came to stir her from her 
usual clumsy apathy. But as she was also ex- 
tremely pig-headed and superstitious, her flashes 
of genius used to die out very often without 
making much impression upon herself or any 
one else. 

"Ahl" said she, calming down at last, pre- 
paring to shoulder her sack, and wiping some 
tears out of her eyes, " it's a cruel world, that 
poisons the sweetest and dearest, that respects 
neither innocence nor youth." 

There was a pathetic emotion in her voice 
that surprised and touched me. 
"What is it?" I asked. 
" Eh ! who can tell ?" said the girl. " There 
are three devils, three washerwomen, opposite, 
who say wicked things of us, and La Jacoma 
repeats them to me. But I think she will not 
dare to do so again," cried Joanna, " or to dis- 
quiet the padrona any more with her tales." 
" But can't it be stopped ?" said I. 
"What can one say? what can one do?" 
cried Joanna. " I am only a servant. Mario, 
he is the master, he is. And he comes to put 
all right — He ! I know that he will make it 
all wrong. But who is to keep clear of error ? 
Not masters, any more than servants. Mine 
will not listen to reason, and they will sacrifice 
a dove to their pride." 

Italian women are eloquent when they are 
excited. This girl whisked up the sacks, her 
blue eyes sparkled, then dimmed, and there, 
like enchantment, was a gaping, wide-mouthed 
stupid Joanna again standing before me with 
her load. I remember the look of the queer 
cellar-like place, with its bars, and the round 
iron scrolled windows, and green vine-stems 
outside. 

Madama Sarti's voice was heard calling over- 
head, "Beppo! Beppo!" 

" She wants him to stir the polenta," said 
Joanna. "It is no good to dwell upon evil. 
We know how to make good polenta in our 
house. Will you come and taste ?" 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



309 



VI. 

Joanna walked carefully up stairs into the 
kitchen, where a great Wood flame was leaping 
on the high stone hearth, and a comfortable in- 
cantation in a huge caldron already begun — 
water and Indian-corn meal, which the padrona 
shook in, wliile Beppo, in his shirt-sleeves, stood 
by with a wonderful serious face. Then he began 
working the mass round and round with a stick ; 
then he got excited, and worked harder and 
harder as the difficulty increased ; then he finally 
leapt on the fire-place, and stood above them all, 
pounding and pushing and poking away with 
all his might. At last, after some five minutes, 
when the steam has carried away the water and 
the mass is hardened 'enough, the fire begins to 
fail : just when Beppo seems exhausted, Joanna 
brings a great wooden platter, and on to this 
board they cleverly rolled out a polenta — an 
avalanche — a huge smoking, steaming mass. 
Then Toninu rushes forward and cuts the mass 
into two halves with a string, one for the serv- 
ants — one for the master's table — and Beppo 
wipes his brow as he leaps down triumphantly 
from the stone hearth. 

The widow still stood in the fire-place, making 
up the fire. Joanna was bearing off one of the 
great smoking hemispheres on its platter ; and 
Jacoma, the maid, was yawning in a chair, and 
resting from her morning's labor. It was a 
common enough scene of fjimily life. A woman 
peeping in through the doorway, with a great 
pile of flax upon her head ; for color, take a 
blue gleam of sky, black beams and rafters, 
shining coppers, and white walls, against one of 
which stands the tall black crucifix; and just 
beside it Fortunata in her coral necklace and 
auburn locks. At this moment, as if he had 
been conjured up somewhere out of the great 
boiling copper, the Count's tall figure suddenly 
appeared. There was a hush and silence as he 
looked in. 

"I shall want a room to-night," he said, 
abruptly, " and supper at eight. Here is some 
game ; more than I shall want." Little Fortu- 
nata, with her face all alight, seemed to awake 
first, and slie sprang forwai'd and took it from 
him. " Thank you," said he, smiling, and 
then he was gone. He was running up stairs, 
four steps at a time. Madame Sarti had turned 
pale, and looked at her son. Antonina drew 
herself up very primly. Joanna flushed, and 
gave one quick glance at Fortunata. I began 
to guess the state of the case when, as I walked 
out into the street to join my sister-in-law, I 
saw the three heads nodding and .straining from 
the opposite window. 

In these friendly villages the people come 
crowding round the strangers, and staring with 
wondering brown eyes, like the little calves do 
on the mountains. H. — whom I had left alone 
safe installed in the shade of a hay chalet, with 
a penknife, a pencil, a church spire, a range of 
low mountains, india-rubber, and all the ma- 
terials for a sketch — I now found surrounded 
Aa 



I by a large family, on its way to the fields after 
the midday meal : there was a bald, good-hu- 
mored woman, with false plaits ; a row of little 
boys and girls, pretty, as all the children ar? in 
these pai-ts. Poor H. was finishing her sketch 
to the usual catechism. "Married? Where 
is the husband ? How many boys and how 
many girls? Does our country please you?" 
(Pause for a compliment.) "Are you Germans 
or Italians? English? Under what rule is 
England ? — Across the sea ? " — a whistle. Then 
a hurried dialogue among one another. ' ' Tliey 
are not Christians." "No." "Yes: look at 
their rings." Then a kind smile, and a genuine 
friendly "Happy journey" at parting. The 
bald woman was unusually cheerful and talka- 
tive. She too was married, and these were five 
of her children. "Were we staying at the inn? 
So the soldier had returned? Itnvas as well, 
perhaps. Eh? It is always well to have a 
man in a family; women are apt to be silly 
and indiscreet. Of coui'se Madama Sarti and 
her daughters were far above her, but she loved 
them (our friend did) ; only there were enemies 
in the valley. He', they say terrible things. 
They say Fortunata looks too high, and are 
jealous, in short ; but she is a pretty creature, 
and has no malice in her ways," says our inform- 
ant, preparing to resume her trudge. "Deh! 
come along, little ones," and off she goes, with 
her brood scrambling after her up the steep 
rocky pass. 

"So that is the key to the poor mother's 
anxieties," said I. "That dear pretty little 
creature — can any one be so cruel as to talk 
spitefully of her ? It is too sad, II." 

"The padrona should be careful of appear- 
ances," said II., gravely, "for the girl's own 
sake." 

Then, as we had already agreed, we walked 
on a little way to call upon our friend. It was 
a curious lovely old gai'den, at the back of the 
low white house in the village street, with great 
closed gates, and balconies, and little buttresses, 
and clothes hanging to dry upon the terrace. 
Here the two old ladies had lived for I don't 
know how many tranquil years. The grass 
was green, but long and straggling, and the 
paths were rough, so that, to our English eyes, 
there was a certain sadness about the place. 
But there was a real wealth of wonders ; and 
precious plants and trees and shrubs for those 
like H. wlio know something of such things. 
Under a little wooden umbrella, darting up, green, 
and with delicate lace-work branches, was a 
slender Norfolk pine-tree; there an aloe in 
flower ; here one or another learned fragrant 
shrubs, and great oleander-trees with the flames 
bursting through the green, and pumj kins, com- 
mon enough, but always splendid, along the 
wall, and strange, deep-colored scentless flowers 
in close serried rows along the beds, and trees, 
with unknown fragrant blossoms tossing. It 
was under one of these that Signoradella Santa 
met us with a friendly welcome. " Will you 
come in, or stay here?'' she asked. "The 



370 



MORETTl'S CAMPANULA. 



Marchesa desires her best compliments. She is 
not yet up, or she would have the jjleasure of 
receiving you." Tlien, after our usual little 
talk of journey and recollections, etc., 11. be- 
gan to praise the garden, and exclaim in ad- 
miration at the treasures she had seen there. 

" To tell the truth, we deserve small credit," 
said Signora della Santa, much gratified. Sa- 
verio de Pavis, who is a botanist, a nephew of 
my Marchesa, has the garden jilanted, and con- 
spires with the gardener to carry out his experi- 
ments. He lives at Agordo, but often comes 
over to see his aunt and his trees here. He is 
away just now." (H. and I looked at each 
other.) "I am glad he is keeping away," the 
signora said : " for, to tell the truth, there has 
been some gossip in the town, and people said 
he was paying great attention to your hostess's 
little daughter. I happen to know that no such 
thought has ever crossed his mind ; he thinks 
of his plants only, and doesn't live in the world 
around him." 

Our friend was clever and reasonable, and I 
thought it better to confess that I had seen her 
hero that very morning. 

" I am sorry to Iiear it," said she. " It was 
but the last time I saw him that he was com- 
plaining of the inn, the bad attendance, and in- 
different cooking there. I regret that people 
should make remarks. The Sartis are too good 
and respectable to allow themselves to be at- 
tacked by evil tongues." 

I could quite imagine her to be right. We 
had a little more talk, and from what she told 
us it seemed indeed as if the Count lived in a 
world different from that which we inhabited. 
A world in which there were changes, but they 
took thousands and thousands of years to effect; 
in which there were kingdoms, and dynasties, 
and conquests perhaps, but silent conquests 
undisputed. If one flower perished, another 
succeeded in its turn. Laws could not be 
broken in this tranquil realm, its state secrets 
might be disclosed without fear of ill. For this 
mystic silent existence Saverio had given up the 
cares and turmoils of quick daily life. At one 
time the pliilosopher had been ambitious and 
keen enough for the cause he loved, and had 
been heart and soul on tlie Italian side, al- 
though a captain in the Austrian army. This 
was in his youth, and he had been remarked 
and called to account. He had been taxed by 
the Austrians until his fortune was completely 
ruined, and now Saverio was a poor man. He 
had worked, waited, and hoped, but when the 
Italian rule was established, the recognition he 
had expected never came. And tlien it was 
that, indignant and disappointed, he turned his 
back upon Euroj^e, upon kings, and court in- 
trigue, and favor. He felt that he was by na- 
ture too hasty, too nervous a man to keep pace 
with the rest of the rout. And so he shut him- 
self up in his old palace, and watched tlie growth 
of the dandelions, and speculated upon the for- 
mation of the rocks about his home (his theory 
was that thoy were coral rocks), and he wander 



ed from peak to peak and from pass to pass, and 
came home and wrote pliilosophical treatises. 
" His sisters are in despair, and think he has 
gone mad, to shut himself up with his books and 
avoid all human society," said the old compan- 
ion, "but he is not mad. He is moderately 
happy in his own way." 



VII. 

We did not think, when we left her waving 
farewells at the great gate, how soon matters 
were to come to a crisis. We were to go on 
the next day ; and talking over our plans and 
schemes, we had almost forgotten the existence 
of the Sartis. I walked up by the back way. 
As I opened my door I found, as usual, some 
one in my room (the whole family used to in- 
vade it unscrupulously) — a pile of linen on the 
floor, two great cojiper pots full of water, Joan- 
na standing by a huge open press, with her back 
turned. As I entered in there came from the 
sitting-room be3-ond a great burst of voices. 
The girl turned round quick, and then I saw 
that her face was all working, flushed and agi- 
tated. 

"It is my fault, all my fault!" she said, 
wringing her hands in an agony of despair. 
" x\h, signora, go in. You may stop Mario. 
He is trying to make a quarrel with the Count." 

Mario had most certainly succeeded in his 
endeavor. I opened the door. There they all 
stood round the table, where the well-known 
green vasculum was lying — Mario flaming, To- 
nina smoothing her apron, Fortunata crying bit- 
terly. 

"Why do you stay here to be insulted? 
Why don't you go ?" cried Mario to his sisters. 
"What can you want with the Count's dried 
herbs? What does his Excellencymean by speak- 
ing to you in such an impatient and insolent fash- 
ion, and suspecting you honest girls of stealing 
them?" Then, turning round u])on the Count 
again, who was looking very haughty and puz- 
zled — " I tell you that my sisters are not the 
common drudges that }'ou seem to imagine. 
My sisters are not to be spoken to as if they 
were servants. They were well born, and re- 
spected by all." 

"Who ever doubted it?" said the Count, 
containing himself with difliculty, seizing his 
hat and his stick, and hastily crushing and 
doubling up a map, which he twisted round and 
round and stuffed into the vasculum. " I asked 
for a missing specimen and was vexed that it 
should have been destroyed. Who talks of steal- 
ing?" 

" They are well born," persisted Mario, Avho 
was in a tremendous passion, and evidently anx- 
ious to impress the fact of a quarrel ; " and I, 
too, although your Excellency may not choose 
to acknowledge it, am not of those who will en- 
dure the insults of the rich." 

'• I have never given your existence one mo- 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



371 



mcnt's consideration," said his Excellency, now 
fairly in a passion too. Then seeing my door 
open, he hurried past mc into the bedroom, where 
he stopped short with all his paraphernalia, while 
Joanna sprang forward. 

"I — I only am to blame," she cried, and 
woii^id have caught his arm. 

" Silence," roared Mario from the next room, 
while the Count shook her oil". 

I thought it as well Saverio should not en- 
counter the fierce champion Mario any more, 
and I silently pointed to the second door upon 
the balcony, which was open, and through which, 
witli a hauglity salutation, the Count strode away. 
I saw him marching down tJic village street, 
and disappearing iu the distance — a gray-linen 
gray-hatted figui-e. The peasants saluted him 
respectfully as he went along, but he, flying by 
at his usual pace, paid no attention to any of their 
greetings : on he went past the wine-shop — past 
tlie black arched entrance to the old brown house. 
He was gone. 

But the scene was not over yet. A cry from 
Tonina called us hastily into the next room. 
Poor little Fortunata had fallen back fainting 
into her sister's arms. Dead, pale, dishevelled, 
with the silver pins falling loose from her hair, 
Tonina had dragged her to the carnation win- 
dow. Mario, looking at once sulky, sorry and 
pacified, was pouring himself out a glass of black 
wine. Joanna had run for one of the great cop- 
per pails of water, and with angry, blue glances 
at the corporal, for all his uniform and mus- 
taches, began dashing the water with both hands 
into Fortunata's ftice. " Go and fetch mamma, 
Mario," said Tonina, severely ; and then mam- 
ma came back, followed by the irrepressible Ma- 
rio. He had evidently given his own version of 
the story. Poor mamma! troubled, puzzled, 
she alternated from thetendercst expressions of 
pity and sympathy to no less affectionate, but 
less sympathetic, maternal snubbings. "For 
shame, Fortunata! Here is the lady. Tliey 
will all see you down the street. Would To- 
nina do such a thing as faint for a caprice ? 
Mario is right. Let the Count go his way. He 
is an original ; nobody can predict from one day 
to another what he may do or say. His Excel- 
lency's state is too high for us. Thou art not 
born to be a countess, my little Fortunata — my 
dearest." (Very sharp:) "Mario, go, for the 
love of heaven ! It will vex her to see thee 
when she recovers herself." 

Mario, doggedly, and calming down, with 
both hands up in the air and his fingers together 
— " I am her true friend, for all that ; you wom- 
en are ignorant, short - sighted, talkative, am- 
bitious. You care not for the censure of the 
neighbors — for the insults that nobleman heaps 
upon the family of Sarti. But I — I tell you 
that I have saved you from the most imminent 
peril, and that you are ingrate all of you." 

So saying, Mario marched off, opening wide 
his ten fingers, clanking down stairs, and the 
padrona, who was evidently struck by his elo- 
quence, again snubbed little Fortunata, who had 



quietly come round witli her head on her sister's 
shoulder, and who was staring through the win- 
dow and between the straggling branches of the 
carnations, with a sad far-away look, inexpressi- 
bly sorrowful and affecting. 

"Eh! it is a bad day's work," said Joanna, 
shrugging her shoulders. "Mario has made 
an uproar and sacrificed his sister's happiness. 
She might have been a countess but for his stu- 
pidity." 

"I never thought he would have said so 
much," sighed Tonina. 

"Be quiet," said Signora Sarti. "Joanna, 
go to thy linen. Mario is justified. The count 
has retired, and it would never do to allow the 
neighbors to talk with disrespect of Fortunata, 
and to look upon us with evil eyes. Mario says 
that the Count is sporting with the affections of 
an innocent. He is an original, and no one, 
not Mario nor any other, shall undei'stand 
him." 

Fortunata was led off" by Tonina, who was 
very kind and, as I thought, compunctious. Jo- 
anna began storing away the linen in the great 
closet in my room, but her tears dribbled on the 
pillow-cases with the frills, and the folded linen. 
"To think it was all for that bit of grass, that 
little nasty flower," poor sobbing Joanna burst 
out at last. "To think that I — I, who would 
give my life for Fortunata, sliould have been the 
one to bring all this ujion her. It was a little 
lilac flower of nothing at all. I have never seen 
any like it," said the girl. This plant, it seem- 
ed, the Count had brought out of his tin case 
and examined during supper the night before, 
and then Fortunata had come in and talked to 
him and asked him to tell her the names of the 
stars (for the Count could tell every thing by 
name — stars, flowers, animals, languages, medi- 
cines, printed books, it was all the same to him), 
and while they were out on the balcony, Joanna 
had cleared away the supper and found the flow- 
er lying on the lid of the green case. For a 
little joke, after the Count had gone to bed, she 
had given it to Fortunata, saying it was a flower 
of good-luck his Excellency had sent her. For- 
tunata teased Joanna half tiie night to know if 
this were true. It was a foolish joke, and when 
Joanna saw how deeply her young mistress took 
it to heart, she had confessed that it was but a 
joke. And then Fortunata, half laughing half 
weeping, said, all the same she should keep it, 
and next morning she showed Joanna a tiny 
crystal locket, into wliich she had put the lilac 
bell. It would not hold the leaves, so she had 
cut them away. And then came the Count, 
hunting everywhere and in a state of excite- 
ment about his lost flower, and Joanna, laugh- 
ing, asked him if it was a magical charm, and 
said it was safe, and when he exclaimed eager- 
ly, at last showed him the crystal locket shyly, 
not knowing if he would be angry. And then 
tlie Count said they had undone him, that he 
had picked it at the risk of his life, that there 
was no other like it. And while he was scold- 
ing, and Fortunata crying, Mario came in. 



372 



MOKETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



"He meant to quarrel," said Joanna, "at 
the first opportunity, and now tliey have quar- 
relled, and our poor Fortunata is the victim !" 

"But, Joanna," I said, "the Count never 
has been serious in his intentions." 

"That is it. They will not believe it; but 
Fortunata felt, and I, too, felt that at one time he 
meant to marry her, and she would have been 
his countess. He is hasty in temper, but true 
in heart. Now all is over. That flower has 
done it. I, too, am to blame. Who is not? 
Eh!" 

A shake of the head — clink, clank — a great 
sob — exit Joanna, swinging her brazen pails. 



vin. 

The result of this painful little scene could 
not yet be known, as far as the Count was con- 
cerned. It seemed not unlikely that he would 
come no more. "Perbacco! That is exactly 
what I wish," said Mario. "If it were an 
honest fellow who loved our Nata, and wished 
to make her his wife, that would be another 
matter ; but the Count only amuses himself, and 
the neighbors laugh in their sleeves." 

"It is to be hoped he will come no more," 
saidTonina, placidly. " Fortunata will forget 
him. She is young, and has been silly. She 
must marry in her own station, to her credit, 
like me, and then she can continue the business 
of the inn." 

H. said she felt inclined to box Tonina's 
cars, she spoke so complacently. 

" Wait, wait, only wait," cried Joanna, with 
a sapient shrug. " Do you think our misfor- 
tunes are completed ? No ; Nata will die be- 
fore long, and that will break my heart and the 
padrona's. She will die, I tell you, if tlie Count 
abandons her." (Then a shake of the hat, then 
a mysterious mutter.) " I think he might re- 
turn when that blockhead of a Mario is gone. . ." 

Mario, whose leave was almost up, seemed 
to have some notion of the sort. He decreed 
in his decided wxiy that Nata was to depart im- 
mediately, the farther the better. There was 
their cousin Hofer who would receive her at 

R , in German Tyrol, and he would pass 

that way and see heron his return to Innspriick, 
where his regiment was quartered. Mario ^vas 
in the Austrian service. That young man was 
a born autocrat. He would allow no excuse, 
grant no delay. I think, perhaps, under tlie 
circumstances, he was right, for he heard more 
of the universal gossip of the place than the 
poor women had dreamt of. So Mario declared 
that Nata wanted no new clothes for her journey. 
Escort ! Joanna could take her ; or, if she cared 
for company, there were the English ladies go- 
ing that very way. 

"But, Mario, it is such a long way," said 
poor Signora Sarti, who was not herself without 
a lingering hope that all might yet come right. 
"All the better," cries Mario, magniloquent. 



"I myself will tell those who dare speak of us 
that she is gone. Then let them say what they 
choose. They will see that our family is un- 
compromising in its self-respect, and will allow 
no interference where its honor is concerned. I 
hadi'ather you put a poniard into my heart than 
allowed my sister's name to be lightly spoken 
of." 

"My poor little Nata," sighed the poor 
mother, taking the girl's hand and stroking it. 
"My poor, poor child!" 

" If it were I," cried Joanna, cocking her hat 
fiercely, " do you think I would go? No, not 
for empires. Hi ! you might offer me gold aifd 
diamonds in vain ; if I loved truly, it is not I 
who would conceal my passion. Struggle not 
against thy nature, my Nata, or tliou wilt die. 
I know thy delicacy and tenderness of heart. 
How can Mario, who has no more sentiment 
than an ox, understand?" 

" Will you be silent, you girl of nothing at 
all ?" in a shriek of indignation from Tonina. 

" I have a heart impassioned, but noble and 
self-sacrificing," exclaims Mario, very angry, 
and looking as red as a turkey-cock. " Why am 
I accused? I am acting for mamma, and up- 
holding her wishes. Is it not so ?" cries the 
young man. And he turned round upon the 
poor padrona, who only began to cry, so worried 
and troubled was she. 

Little Nata was kissing her mother's witlicr- 
ed cheeks again and again. "Don't believe La 
Joanna. I am not going to die, my mamma," 
she said. "I suff'er a little, but only a little. 
Mario is right. It is fitter that I should go, for 
how can I venture to believe the Count when he 
tells me he prefers me to all others ? Yes, I 
will go, if it will stop people from blaming us." 
And then she ran out of the kitchen, and went 
and sat on her little low chair in the corner by 
the window, at the far end of the passage, witli 
her face hidden in her hands. There she sat, 
poor little soul. Over her head the great brown ' 
carnations were hanging; outside all the busy 
voices were echoing ; the squares of light were 
travelling along the wooden floor. She never 
moved till she heard her mother's stc]) upon the 
stairs ; then she pulled out her work from her 
pocket, and began to sing a little sung as she 
stuck the stitches. 

When dinner was over, H. and I, and Tom 
and. his pipe, generally w^ent out together for a 
sociable little quartet upon the bridge. That 
evening, seeing Nata in the doorway, I called 
lier to come with us. I thought it as well she 
should be seen with us ; we two followed, and 
H. walked slowly ahead, leaning upon her son's 
arm. We left the pallone-phiyers beginning their 
game ; we went along the narrow sti-eet. In 
every doorway the little white children were 
clustering on the step nibbling their suppers — 
lumps of polenta, little bowls of milk ; the par- 
ents ate within, or stood leaning over the little 
balconies where the flax was hanging to dry. 
We caught glimpses of copper and wood and 
fire interiors; in the air was a tinkling of com- 



MORETTl'S CAMPANULA. 



373 



ing flocks, a murmuring chorus of voices, and 
then tlie tliud of some late carding-pin, still fall- 
ing upon the flax. Old women past other work 
were sitting spinning at the doors and nodding 
their white locks at us as we passed. Tlie at- 
tention we generally excited was rather divert- 
ed on this occasion by the passage of two ped- 
dlers with huge green umbrellas slipped down 
into the little rings along the side of the packs. I 
saw a group as we passed standing round some 
drawers opened out to display the glittering tin- 
sel treasures that dazzle the peasant-girls in 
wonder ; and then, beyond the village, we came 
to the little bridge across the stream, and we sat 
down upon a log that happened to be felled and 
lying on the bank. 

So Tom smoked his pipe in the glow of the even- 
ing ; the stream washing by reflected yellow and 
crimson, and the emerald lights from the broad 
leaves of Indian corn, among which the country 
people were strolling. Presently another echo 
reached us, an Alpine chant, at once cheerful 
and melancholy ; then came a hurried proces- 
sion of little goats, followed by the deliberate 
steps of the gray cows coming down from the 
mountains; then more women plodding home 
with their loads of flax, and little children run- 
ning bare-legged, and dragging implements of 
labor bigger than themselves, or carrying small 
heaps in little baskets fitted to their backs. Then 
came tlie cheerful company of gallant country 
youths, walking six of a vow, shirt-sleeves gleam- 
ing, arm-in-arm, hats well cocked, like Joan- 
na's; they struck up again with all their lungs 
as they entered the village. After a little while 
we saw another group of people advancing, 
with a hum of voices that sounded both softer 
and shriller than the peasants' queer falsettos. 
" It is all tlie gentry of the town,"'Nata said; 
" a great party went out this morning to camp 
in the woods," 

The gentry seemed to have been enjoying their 
picnic thoroughly; they advanced in a long line, 
two and two, young men and pretty young wom- 
en with dark heads all uncovered, except one, 
who, I tliink, wore a black veil flung over her 
white dress and glossy black locks. They, too, 
were walking arm-in-arm, laughing, and whis- 
pering, and talking gayly, and coming in a sort 
of step. 

" That first lady is to be married on Mon- 
day," said Nata. "That is her 'sposo' she is 
walking with : he is engaged in tlie mines at 
Agordo." They swept by quite close, tiieir 
garments touching ours as they passed. One 
young girl nodded gravely to Fortunata, the 
others were too happy or too absorbed to notice 
her. There was something almost bacchanalian 
in the little procession : the white dresses, the 
garlands and flowers they were bringing back, 
the subdued happy excitement as they swept on 
through the calm of the evening. As the last 
of the file went by, I saw Fortunata flush and 
start. There was the Count with a lady on his 
arm walking on with the rest. I thought he 
saw us, for he stopped, imperceptibly almost, 



never looking, but he passed on without a sign, 
and disappeared with the rest down the village 
street. 

A minute after, Nata quietly said she must 
go home and see to the supper ; would I please 
not disturb myself to come with hev ? And she 
got up and walked very quickly, in a sort of zig- 
zag way at first, but afterwards straightly as 
usual. 

Later in the evening we also got up to go. 
Tom's pipe was smoked out. It was getting 
chilly, and H. was wrapping her Indian shawl 
more and more closely round her shoulders. On 
our way we met the padrona, standing with the 
little group that was still gazing at the peddler's 
wondrous wares. 

"Why, Signora, have you been buying some 
of those little saints?" said Tom. 

"These are silver pins for Nata," said the 
padrona, joining us, showing us her little parcel. 
" I ran after the peddler, " she explained, coming 
along. "My little Nata came home so pale, so 
sad, that I thouglit I would try and give her one 
moment's pleasure. Mario is right. I have 
been foolish and ambitious ; but Fortunata is so 
good, so dear, that is my excuse," said the poor 
proud mother. "I thought my child was de- 
serving of any fate, or never would I have en- 
couraged the Count; but oh! they must not 
dare to say things against her fair fame. It is 
as if one of these sliarp pins was piercing my 
breast when I think of it all. But when she is 
gone, people will see that we are proud and 
will not suffer a breath against our honor." 
Then she began to tell me that " Cousin Hofer " 
was a lady like herself, a widow in German Tyr- 
ol, keeping, as she did, an inn partly for pleas- 
ure — for the advantage of society. "Tlie Hofer's 
house was only habitable in the summer. If we 
really intended crossing the Seisser Alp on our 
way to Bolsano, we should pass very near it, 
"and," said Signora Sarti, "I know not how 
to thank the gentry for their offer to look after 
the girls. I shall keep Mario three days longer, 
and it will be better," she said, "for us all; 
and Joanna will be a companion to Nata, The 
two are faithful friends." 

Fortunata met us pale but smiling when we 
came in. Slie had laid out the supper, she had 
brought a lamp to light us. All that evening 
she was coming and going, nervously busy, and 
more than once I heard her laugh. It was a 
sad musical laugh, very near to tears, but not 
bitter. There was nothing bitter in her nature. 
My nephew, Tom, who had had a sentiment 
early crushed in the bud, he told us, was much 
interested when we spoke to him. He willing- 
ly agreed, at his mother's request, to the extra 
infliction of two more women to escort. "Four 
was no worse than two," Tom remarked : "and 
it was not for long." 



374 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



IX. 



That evening I went to Led to toss and 
turn, and hear voices and see lights and faces 
suddenly flushed npon the darl^ncss. Long af- 
ter midnight I heard the padrona silently creep- 
ing up stairs. I lay starting at the striking of 
shrill clocks, at the melancholy cry of the watch- 
man. " The hour is one," he said ; " The hour 
is two ;" and his voice echoed all along the si- 
lent village. At last I got up, and putting on 
a dressing-gown, I opened the door upon the 
wooden gallery, and I saw that I was not alone 
to watch and wake ; another figure was stand- 
ing leaning against tlie banister. I guessed who 
it was when I saw the dark shade of a conical 
hat. 

" Who is it ?" whispered Joanna ; " ah, the 
Signora frightened me!" Then for a minute 
we stood together looking at the burning sky 
above the black roofs of the houses. ' ' Look 
at the stars how they shine ! Is it not a beau- 
tiful silence ?" said Joanna. " The Count can 
tell the name of every one, big and little. He 
is learned, too learned," said Joanna bitterly, 
with a shrug. "He has bewitched her. Ah, 
Signora 1 Fortunata is asleep at last ! She re- 
strains her complaints not to vex her mother ; 
but when we are alone it is as if she would be 
broken by her sorrow. She has told me liow 
he passed her without a look. I suffered so in 
her sorrow I could not rest, and I thought the 
stars would do me good." 

Joanna had something of her great name- 
sake's nature — a simple enthusiasm and cour- 
age, and deep-hearted devotion. To lier, the 
kingdom to be conquered was Fortunata's liap- 
piness ; her dear Fortunata who lay crying lier- 
self to sleep upon her straw mattress with all her 
gleaming hair twisted over the pillow, and her 
white beautiful face hidden. The padrona's 
white linen was not whiter than Fortunata's skin . 
A lady ! she Avas sweet enough to be a lady all 
the rest of her life if it so pleased her, and sit 
with her hands before her for ever and ever. 
Tonina, so Joanna thought, was no better than 
herself, except in being the padrona's daugliter 
and wearing an alpaca dress ; but Nata ! It was 
to Nata that all Joanna's gratitude and love for 
the shelter and home-love the widow had given 
her was bestowed. So she whispered on in the 
darkness. It was then, as she looked up over 
the housetops at the clear burning night, that 
she vowed a vow to the bright stars that if she 
could do any thing, any thing in the whole world 
to make Nata happy she would do it, and sud- 
denly the thought came to her of replacing the 
flower. Nata's mother was asleep after her long 
day's work ; for a time, poor soul, her anxieties 
were calmed. Nata's sister was dreaming warm 
and placid in her bed by the window. 

What would I not have given afterwards to 
have been quietly asleep in my bed, instead 
of waking, and making cruel mischief by my 
thoughtless words I Is it an excuse that, at that 
minute, dreams seemed so vivid, commonplace, 



and realities so far away ? " Signora," Joanna 
said to me in mysterious whispers, " shall I tell 
you what I think? I think the Count makes 
magic with his flowers, and that the purple bell- 
flower poor Nata destroyed was a magic herb, 
and has worked all this ill. He spoke strange- 
ly. He said that alone was wanting to com- 
plete his work, and he could find no other in its 
place. He was angry, so angry ! Signora, do 
the English believe in magic?" 

" No one believes in charms, Joanna," I said ; 
" only poets, not practical people. My nephew 
burns a magic leaf, and a smoke rises and rises, 
and those who practise the incantation say that 
it cures ill-humor. And I, too, have a precious 
little lierb in a tin box in my portmanteau. It 
looks brown and dry ; but, if I pour water on 
it, a delicious fragrance comes, and if I am tired 
and sad it chec<i-s mc. Some people might call 
these wonderful things tea-leaves and tobac- 
co. . . ." 

" Eh !" says Joanna, " who can tell ! If the 
Signora only knew of precious herbs that would 
bring lionorable love as well as peace of mind, 
that would be well for all." 

I thought she was laughing, that she under- 
stood me. It was so dark I could not see her 
face ; but I make no excuses, for I was punish^ 
ed after, and blamed myself when it was too 
late. 

" There was a great enchanter once in Eng- 
land, Joanna. His name was Gulielmo. He 
could summon fairies at liis will, and once he 
sent his messengers flying, and bade them bring 
a purple flower, of which the juice divided lov- 
ers strangely, and made much mischief; and 
then, when all seemed hopeless," I said, getting 
sleepy by degrees, " the fairies flew at his com- 
mand, and upon the wild thymy bank another 
flower was growing, and all was well again, and 
the lovers united. But that Avas hundreds of 
years ago, and the great enchanter is dead. 
Good-night, Joanna. It is time for you to go 
to sleep, instead of looking at the stars." And 
so I went back to peaceful dreams, all uncon- 
scious of the ill I liad done. 



X. 

The village turned out to see our start on the 
morning of our departure for C . The Aus- 
trian soldiers lent a hand, knots were tied with 
immense exertion, chairs and steps placed in 
convenient positions for the ascent of gigantic 
mules. Windows were noisily opened, advice 
was given, pieces of string were freely distribu- 
ted ; an hour must have passed in tying and un- 
tying every part of the apparatus of four bags 
and a knapsack .and three sheepskin saddles : 
the very tails of the mules seemed to me fast- 
ened on with string. At last we clattered oft' 
cheerfully through the village street with our 
heads over our shoulders responding to the sign- 
ora's farewell wavings and blessings. I can 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



373 



see the slim anxious figure before me now stand- 
ing by the fountain and watching us go. Ma- 
rio cried out that he should follow on Monday, 
and flourished his cap. The three hateful wasli- 
crwomen burst out into shrill laugliter. Then , 
we passed Signora della Santa's door ; then the ! 
house of our talkative friend with all the chil- 
dren. Five or six of them rushed out frantic 
into the street. Tom trudged ahead with his 
gi-eat axe, then came Bruno, who had bustled to 
the front with his panniers full of hand-bags ; 
then H. and I on our sheepskins highly perch- 
ed ; and Nata last with Joanna walking by the 
side of her mule. She was very pale and silent, 
and Joanna spoke not a word at starting. More 
than once I saw her looking back at the familiar 
sight. The ridges of the mountains, with the 
well-known dents and clefts, the piled roofs of 
the village, the steeple. There was Signora del- 
la Santa's gate, looking now quite small, like a 
doll's house ; there was the chimney of the 
" Black Engle," and the smoke from the kitch- 
en where the pot was boiling. I could imagine 
how those lines and shadows must look to Jo- 
anna, like the lines and marks on a familiar 
face. Nata never turned her head, but rode on 
drooping and thoughtful all through the golden 
hours of that great day. 

How can one write it down ? A flowing 
melody of mountain, and valley, and rushing 
water, and green things drifting and creeping 
everywhere ; flowers white, and gold, and violet, 
as it were, striking sweet notes. High and sol- 
emn ridges dominating green valleys, and lim- 
pid streams rippling with a sweet impetuous 
dash. Now we follow Bruno along a narrow 
gorge of dazzling shadow and solemn lights. 
They come flowing from the towering heights 
overhead. We ride through a dell of moss and 
of lawu folded against the rocks, and round the 
tall stems of the cedar-trees. They stand keep- 
ing watch like sentinels at the gate of the pass. 
Then higlier still the open world shines round 
us, snow-peaks heave, the blue heaven comes 
down, the mules climb step by step, the sun be- 
gins to burn : we pass crosses casting a slender 
line of shade across the rocks that pave our 
way ; we scale smooth fragrant alps, where the 
goats and cows come from over the horizon 
tinkling down to meet us, and to gaze at us 
with wild brown eyes. The people at work up 
in the faint green heights seem to look down at 
us too. Time passes: the lights grow morel 
clear, the colors more liglit. We cross a wide 
green alp, where a few satyrs, and shepherds in 
goatskins, and brown-faced children are keeping \ 
the flocks ; and then at last we stop in a scoop- 
ed, green, silent valley, where the procession 
comes to a halt, and Bruno quietly begins to 
browse, and the mules, seeing Bruno stop, stop 
too, and Peter and Luigi, the mule-men, light 
their pipes afresh. Wc are at the summit of 
the pass. 

Peter was a great big fellow, a German Tyr- 
olese, with this constant pipe in his mouth (it 
was painted with a cottage and a rural view). 



He seemed much taken by Joanna, and tried to 
make conversation all along the road. He now 
came to ofl^er assistance ; but she treated his ad- 
vances in a very lofty fashion, and turning her 
back, began unpacking for herself the basket of 
provisions we had brought — ripe figs, hard eggs, 
and rolls, and a little wine. The guides went 
to a wooden chalet close by, and came back 
with a pail of milk. They were followed by 
some children, and a girl of about fifteen, and a 
calf that instantly trotted up to Bruno and 
moo'd. High up the father and mother were 
at work reaping the grass, and one little girl 
was toiling up the long burning slope with their 
midday meal. I was going to begin my lunch 
when H. called me. 

" Come here for one minute," she said. 
She was standing on a little eminence. I 
hardly know now what we saw at that hour as 
we stood there together. Our hearts and eyes 
were opened suddenly, for the sky was so pur- 
ple blue, the rocks at hand tinted, dented, mod- 
elled with tender inscrutable transitions, beauti- 
ful, tremulous, with blue and brown ; the world 
beyond was snow and light and rocky ridge. 
The ice-bound Marmolata rose before us: we 
saw peak beyond peak, an infinity not too iflfi- 
nite. At our feet the soft brushwood all flow- 
ered and tangled with tendrils and leaves. 
There were great soft gray star-thistles, blue- 
bells, leaves tongue-shaped, streaked with red 
veins, argentine, and bronze, and silver. . . . 

When we came back I was surprised to find 
Joanna talking very confidentially to the tall 
guide, Peter of the shirt-sleeves. Her haughty 
reserve seemed to have melted, and she was ask- 
ing him questions, one after another, about the 
countrj', the ways, the guides, the travellers, and 
the rocks. Had he ever been up the Marmo- 
lata ? What was it like up there ? And the 
Schlern — that was where we were going : was 
it green ? were there any flowers ? was it very 
difficult to ascend? 

"It was not easy for women," the guide said. 
" The Count de Paris had been up last year, 
and this year again ; but he had alert legs, they 
said." 

" I should like to go," said Joanna, thought- 
fully. 

" Shall I take you?" said the guide, gallant- 
ly. 

Joanna looked at me, and did not answer. 

That night we slept at a little inn in a lone- 
ly, desolate place, with ragged, gentle people, 
wooden houses falling to decav, and foaming 
waters rushing through many streams and 
troughs. Fortimata dined with us in a great 
bedroom, where our dinner was served, by a 
crucifix. Joanna waited — nothing would in- 
duce her to sit down. 

On the second day's journey we came to a 
desolate pass, where rocks, rounded and massed 
in strange unnatural shapes, were piled along 
the road. There was something human, and, 
to me, most horrible about them : they were not 
ragged, and nigged, and wild, like those we had 



376 



MOKETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



before ; but tliey looked as if they had 
been modelled by some terrible hands, rounded, 
smoothed, and kneaded for some strange pur- 
pose, and poised one on the other in awful-look- 
ing heaps of lumps and balls and columns, upon 
which no flowers could spring, no green things 
could grow. 

" There ! Nata is crushed by a load like one 
of those," said Joanna ; " and I, too, have one 
upon my heart." 

For some time past the clouds had been 
gathering, and a damp mist inclosed us closer 
and closer, parting to show black tossing waves 
of cloud beyond : tliere was an echo of thunder 
in the air. 

Nata still rode on in her sad, listless way ; 
she did not seem to care whether storm or sun- 
shine fell upon her liead. 

" There is a storm coming," said Tom cheer- 
fully. 

"Don't be afraid," cried the guide. "We 
are close to a shelter." 

We pushed on, and, as he promised, we were 
able to reach a little lonely hut, standing at the 
edge of the great Seisser Alp, just before the 
storm broke. The old landlord came out to 
shAe us by the hand and make us welcome. 
He was a strange old man, with leather-breeches 
and gray stockings, and a hook nose and a lean 
brown face. He brought us into his room, 
smoked-stained and wood-panelled, and bidding 
us be seated, he left us hastil}^, to hurry down 
and put the animals under shelter; and then 
the shadowy armies came rolling across the 
mighty Alp, echoing, deafening, and breaking 
into falling streams of water. 

"It will soon be over," the landlord said, 
coming up with the guides, and putting places 
for us all at his tripod table. "I have got 
bread," he said, " and cheese, and wine ; plenty 
to make merry withformarried and single. Are 
you married?" he asked Fortunata, who blushed 
up and shook her head smiling. 

"Then," said the old fellow, "you have no 
sorrows and no joys. The single have neither 
sorrows nor joys. Will you stay with me and 
be my sennerinn ? You shall milk the cows, 
and learn to call my pigs by their names." 

"That is more suitable for me," said Joan- 
na, laughing. " I will stay and be your sen- 
nerinn." 

So we sat breaking the hard wooden biscuits, 
and listening to the storms all trouping round the 
lonely chalet. Tom stood outside the door, on 
the wooden balcony, watching for a break in the 
clouds. The old fellow busied himself waiting 
on us, talking, and serving us. He made his 
own cheese, he told us, and his butter; he.did 
every thing himself, and lived alone, except 
when travellers came, like ourselves, to visit 
him. He had various ingenious devices for les- 
sening his labors. I remember, among other 
things, noticing a wooden pipe for pigs'-wash 
from the balcony straight into the trough below. 
The tall guide, who was used to storms, sat with 
his two arms on the table, gaping at Joanna, 



and philosophically smoking his great pipe. 
His companion went down to have a look at the 
beasts. Our old host, in his turn, produced a 
handsome silver pipe, with a top such as tliey 
use in those parts ; and when H. said, smiling, 
that it was pretty, he pulled it out of his mouth 
and begged her to smoke it for him. Tom went 
off into convulsive chuckles at the notion of his 
mother smoking a pipe. The old fellow laugh- 
ed, seeing us laugh, and then skipped off quick- 
ly to see to some household arrangement. 

"The last visitors I had," said he, clattering 
about among his pans, ' ' were English, like your- 
selves — two ladies and two gentlemen. The 
gentlemen had been up the Schlern. One of 
them was a botanist, and he told me that there 
was no such place, not in all his country, for 
flowers and grasses. He had white and blue, 
and red and violet — a box full. See, he left me 
some edelweiss," said the old fellow, pointing to 
a great bunch stuck into his hat that was hang- 
ing on a peg. 

" And this is the way to the Schlern ?" said 
Joanna. 

"This is one of the ways," said the host. 
"You cross the Alp by tlie Horses' Teeth — oli, 
it is nothing ; and if I had my young legs — " 
here he slapped his leather gaiters. "People 
sometimes sleep here before they start ; look, I 
have a handsome guest-chamber." And as he 
spoke he opened a door and showed us a wooden 
chamber with three beds in it. "Yon ladies 
will be comfortable in there if you have to stay 
all night." 

" Confound the weather !" said Tom, coming 
in from the gallery, and shaking himself. 

There were three rooms to the chalet: the 
dairy, the kitchen, and the guest-chamber, all 
opening into one another ; underneath was the 
pigs' house and the hay-stable. In another 
stable, separate from the house, the mules were 
safely housed, dry and warm, out of the pour- 
ing rain. It was falling in sheets of water, and 
hail came, we could scarcely tell from whence, 
so thick were the clouds and the vapors rolling 
along the ground. But the guides went on pre- 
dicting fine weather, and about three o'clock the 
clouds broke and the vapors drifted away; a 
bright sun came out suddenly, a world was 
created out of the chaos, and once more wc 
started on our journey. The old fellow bade us 
farew^ell, and then let us go our way. He stood 
in his gallery as we rode away ; he never looked 
after us. I can hear him now calling his pigs 
by their names. They Avere his real friends 
and companions in his lonely chalet in the 
midst of that great Alp. 



XI. 



The baths of R lie deep hidden among 

cool green woods, where the waters ripple through 
mosses. From the crest of the opposite mount- 
ain we could see the siiining summits of fir-trees 



MOKETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



377 



and a golden gloom among their stems. An old 
ruined castle on the liill stood solitary and ra- 
diant. Some black rooks were floating over it 
in a crescent, but I could see no sign of a dwell- 
ing-place for human people. As we stumbled 
along we passed some peasants, who stared, and 
smiled, and marched on. One woman looked 
earnestly at Fortunata riding by, and suddenly 
emptied half tlie pears in her basket into the 
girl's lap. But it was Joanna who nodded 
"Thank you," and begun to crunch the ripe 
fruit. All day long she had come with even 
steps, never hurrying, rarely lagging behind ; 
and yet she talked to every passer-by, told them 
with pride that we were travelling togetlier, 
asked questions all along the road, shook hands 
freely, and made the holy sign by every wayside 
cross. As for Nata, she hardly looked up or 
spoke, but jogged on quietly, drooping a little 
with sad eyes that scarcely brightened. She 
did not care for the beauty of sights we passed. 
People in far worse trouble than Nata's can per- 
haps feel with living people and animate happi- 
ness, and find comfort in it ; but it is in vain to 
ask them to be glad because we have taken them 
to a high pass, and because the sun is shining 
on a heap of earth and trees, and the flowers 
are luxuriant. It is only when the first bitter- 
ness of the spirit is past that the voice of Nature 
can reach sad ears. Her call is too still, too 
gentle, to be heard when a tumult is in the 
heart. 

" This is now the last ascent," said the guide, 
as we reached the woods: "this path leads 
straight to the baths." 

Where had we come to? Did gods bathe in 
the waters above? had they passed before us, 
leaving the radiance of their footsteps behind 
them ? Now that we had entered the gloom 
we found it changed to a delight, a mystery, a 
shimmer. Golden twigs and stems, and creep- 
ing sprays hid the radiating sky : everywhere 
hung veils of moss, so wild, so soft, that it seem- 
ed as if they must have come gently blown by 
the wind ; we passed a crystal pool reflecting 
these sweet wonders ; there was a faint fragrant 
essence in the air, glistering pine-cones were 
piled along the grass, and flowers and wild 
strawberries sparkled like rubies. It was the 
last golden minute of this long day: suddenly 
the evening came upon us, and the enchant- 
ment was over. 

We were not yet at our journey's end, for 
Peter lighted a fresh pipe. When we asked 
where the house could be, the men nodded and 
pointed, and strode on by the stumbling mules. 
We were utterly tired out, and the way seemed 
very long ; but at last the path opened wider, 
and a woman came strolling along knitting in 
the twilight. She signed to the men and passed 
on ; then we saw four people walking arm-in- 
arm, who stood to let us pass, but said nothing ; 
and at last, at a turn, we came upon an open 
space, in the midst of which were two dusky 
wooden houses. Shadowy groups were stand- 
ing round about in the twilight, and overhead 



silent dusky figures were watching from a 
wooden gallery. 

So here, in the very heart of this fairy land, 
the country people had built their little bath- 
house, and would come to drink the waters. 
They were big, gentle, ox-eyed people, with sol- 
emn ways and calm faces. Even the children 
played in a sober fashion in their little conical 
hats. Frau Hofer came half-way down the 
wooden stairs to meet us, and gravely kissed 
her cousin ; she was followed by a sort of Au- 
drey — a big peasant-woman — who strode before 
us along the gallery, and silently flung wide 
open the doors of our room. The gallery crossed 
one great window dimly lighted, and as I passed 
I saw that this was the altar window of a little 
chapel, and the lights were burning on the altar. 
At the end of the gallery was an open balcony, 
where two 9ld men were sitting on a bench close 
to my door, smoking their silver-topped pipes 
and listening to the chorus coming from the 
dusk below. It was a quaint mystical place 
that we had come to. I thought of the woods 
through which we had passed rustling in the 
twilight, now that the tide of light had ebbed 
away ; of sleeping birds, of torpid insects, and 
closed chalices of flowers, of the little snakes 
lying drowsy in the mossy rocks, and squirrels, 
and all the harmless woodland life, while here 
was this strange silent company, wakeful still, 
and assembled round the little chapel. Was it 
all fairy work ? w^ere these stately people court- 
iers in disguise? was Rosalind among them, and 
melancholy Jaques ? or was this the wood in 
which poor Hcrmia wandered, and Titania hid 
her Indian boy ? Had Shakspeare .been here 
in a dream one night ? 

The bedrooms were little rooms with wooden 
doors and floors and windows, and little straw 
beds ; Joanna and Nata had one together, and 
my room came next. " Come quick and rest, 
Nata, " I heard the sturdy Joanna saying. She 
had speedily made friends with the landlady, 
and I presently met her hurrying along the pas- 
sage carrying some supper for herself and Nata 
on a little tray : some fish, two glasses of spark- 
ling water, and a piece of bread. 

" She is tired, poor little thing I I am taking 
this to her," said Joanna. "The gentry are 
served in the dining-room — they will find the 
priest there and our guides." 

There was a tall crucifix at the end of the 
long bare dining-room, wiiere the priest was 
supping with his candle before him, and a table 
was set opposite with another that was lighted 
for us. Peter and the other man were also sit- 
ting drinking and munching the hard seed-bis- 
cuit of the country with their enormous mouths, 
a few peasants looked in at us and went away, 
the little waitress came and went, like Nata and 
her sister used to do, with her pouch of office 
hanging from her waist. In the middle of his 
supper the old priest rose from table, and stood 
with folded arms and reverently said a prayer, 
and then sat down again. Joanna, who had 
come in, crossed herself devoutly, and then went 



378 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



up and entered into conversation with him. He 
listened and ate, and responded with benevolent 
nods. Did many gentry come to the place? 
Not many, Joanna imagined ; it was not to 
compare for furniture to their own "Black 
Eagle " at C . 

" But it is pretty here in the forest in summer- 
time," said the old priest. 

"Eh! summer is better than winter," says 
Joanna; "every thing looks so preen, and 
there is plenty of food for the cattle, and flowers 
grow by the cart-full." 

The old priest told her, as he helped himself 
to prunes, that this was the country for flowers. 
"Collectors came from every part of Europe; 
up on the Schlern," he said, " there are many 
rare species I myself have gathered there." 
We left her still plying him with questions, to 
go and sit out in the dusk of the wooden gallery 
until it was time to go to bed. Fragrant and 
cool came the air blowing in our faces, softly 
shone the stars and the great crescent moon be- 
yond the ruined castle. One or two of the peo- 
ple spoke to us, as they, too, stood admiring and 
leaning against the wooden balustrade. One 
funny little girl, called Urse, came up and sat 
upon the bench beside me, and asked as usual 
if we were married, and showed H. her silver 
ring that her father had given her, only it was 
too dark to see the little cross upon it and the 
letters beneath. 



XII. 

FoKTUNATA Came knocking at my door early 
next morning before I was quite ready. I had 
been listening for some time to the waking 
sounds, the voices in the chapel, the children 
calling to one another, the pump, the footsteps 
on the wooden gallery. I had heard little Urse 
chattering outside my door, and Fortunata and 
Madame Hofer calling Joanna once or twice. 

" Is Joanna with you ?" Fortunata said. 

I answered througli my door: "I have not 
seen her ; tell them to prepare our breakfast with 
buttered eggs." 

" Yes," said Fortunata, going away. 

Our breakfast was ready spread in the long 
room. There were three glasses, very brightly 
])olished, to drink the cofffee, three dry twisted 
horns of bread, and a great dish of eggs broken 
up, and smoking and cooked with pepper. We 
felt a little ashamed of our luxurious habits when 
we saw the peasant-women coming shyly to ask 
for their modest glasses of fresh water and dry 
half horns of bread. I was pouring H.'s coffee 
into her glass when Fortunata came again. 

"Had we all we wished? could she get us 
anything?" "Signora?" Fortunata said, "I 
can not imagine where Joanna can be. She 
was gone when I awoke this morning ; she has 
not been to mass ; she has had no breakfast ; I 
can not find her anywhere." 

" She has gone oft' for a ramble this lovely 



morning," said H. "My dear, ask Madame 
Hofer for some more hot milk." 

" Cousin Hofer says she may have gone up 
to the castle," Fortunata cried, coming back with 
the milk ; and then H. proposed we should all 
go there after breakfast. 

Many of the women were only now coming 
out of the chapel and crowding through the door- 
way. The old fellows, whose devotions were 
shorter — naturally, at their age, they could not 
have so much to pray for — were already estab- 
lished on their wooden benches, and stiffly 
stretching their kneebreeches along the gallery 
and in front of the baths ; they gravely nodded 
good-mornings over their pipes. Urse and her 
little brother were standing swinging two great 
baskets on the green in front of the houses, and 
we asked them to come with us. But they said 
no, they were going to pick strawbemes with 
Peter ; he had desired them to wait. 

Peter came up at this minute, and I asked 
him if he had seen nothing of Joanna. We had 
missed her, and were a little anxious. The gi- 
ant chuckled, as if it was a capital joke. " Had 
she run away ? She was a strong one, she had 
no timidity, and would come to no harm. She 
wishes to outrun you all," Peter said. " There 
are plenty on the Alp to help her if she loses 
her way ; besides, I told her many things as we 
came along ; and now she will see the world for 
herself." 

I could not help a disagreeable feeling that 
this great fellow knew more than he chose to 
tell. However, my suspicions were too vague 
to put into other people's heads. I watched 
him march oft' with swinging shirt-sleeves, and 
the two children scampering after with their bas- 
kets. 

We had a charming stroll to the old castle, 
climbing step by step between the circling stems 
of the fir-trees, among gray stones and mosses, 
and under bright changing shadows. Fortuna- 
ta cheered up a little, and told us a story on tlie 
way. 

" Once," she said, "there was another castle 
belonging to a cruel knight, who ravaged all the 
country round, and when the owner of this cas- 
tle had to go away for a long journey, he de- 
sired his lady if she loved him not to pass be- 
yond the walls till his return, and he collected 
provisions for a year, and he left her with her 
maid to wait his return. And some time after 
he had left, a little baby was born to the lady, 
and she and the maid tended it and nursed it. 
But when the year was nearly at an end, the 
provisions began to fail. 

" The knight did not return till a year and a 
day after he bad left his home. Then he came 
hurrying up the hill, and he saw some one watch- 
ing for him from the tower-window, and he spur- 
red his horse and waved his hand. But when 
he entered the castle all was silent, and no one 
came to meet him. The lady was dead," said 
Nata ; " she had died watching from tlie win- 
dow, with her little baby in her arms. The pro- 
visions were all gone and they had starved to 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



death ; and the poor maid was dead, too," said 
Nata, and as she said it she turned a little pale 
andstnmbled over a stone. " The villagers say 
the white lady sometimes watches still i'rom the 
old tower-window with her infant in her arras," 
she added. "Look! was that any one? can 
Joanna be up there ?'' 

We reached the mossy old castle, with its 
sweet wild woodland view, but we found no Jo- 
anna, only some goats browsing the grass among 
the ruins. I could see that Fortunata was get- 
ting very anxious, though she said little ; she 
was weak and impressionable, and her languor 
seemecf to have changed into a sort of fever ; her 
cheeks burned. I scolded her for it and for be- 
ing so silly as to be frightened, but in truth we 
too thought it strange when we got down to find 
no news of the girl. Our Audrey was cleaning 
her pails, and knew nothing of Joanna, except 
that she had not come back. And then Nata 
went away into the little chapel. I saw her 
kneeling there, poor little thing, with her face 
buried in her hands, as I passed the gallery win- 
dow. 

Joanna was a stout, hearty girl. Madame 
Hofer said, as Peter had done, that slie had 
gone out for a walk and probably lost her way ; 
but there were people at work on the Alps all 
about who would put her in the right road 
again. To quiet Fortunata, we determined to 
send round to the neighboring chalets and ask 
if she had been seen, and this being settled, 
Madame Hofer went on with her cooking. All 
the peasant people were very kind and reassur- 
ing ; one or two of them volunteered to go off 
and look for her. The old fellows took their 
silver pipes out of their mouths to recount their 
own early exploits. " Perhaps she has gone 
up the Schlern," said one of the boys, open- 
mouthed ; but he was peremptorily snubbed for 
the suggestion by his grandfather. "The 
Schlern was not for little boys or women." 
And so the time passed slowly as the shadows 
shifted, to the hum of the voices tranquilly dis- 
coursing, to the measured footsteps of the peo- 
ple crossing the little gallery. The old men, 
who seemed permanently established on the 
bench outside my door, made their jokes as the 
younger women passed by ; the housemaid, fol- 
lowed by her tame goat, clumped from the well 
to the kitchen and back to the well again with 
her tubs. It was all sunny and warm and 
sweet, and would have been utterly peaceful to 
me if it had not been for the thought of poor 
little Nata with her burning cheeks. Seeing 
her flit past my window, I thought it best to lay 
hands upon her. 

"Come in here, Nata," I said, "and keep 
still, my dear. You will flurry yourself into a 
fever if you come and go in the sun. We have 
sent some messengers to ask for news of Joan- 
na. Madame Hofer will send us word when 
they return." 

" Cousin Hofer only laughs," Fortunata said, 
trying not to cry. The troubles and agitations 
of the last few days had told upon her nerves. 



I guessed that they had been strained to the ut- 
termost before. For herself, the girl had plen- 
ty of spirit, and had done her best to bear the 
doubt, vexation, and wretchedness from which 
she had suffered so cruelly of late. She had 
been good, and uttered no word of complaint ; 
but who can say what cruel pangs that poor lit- 
tle heart had endured. She had been foolish, 
perhaps, and romantic ; but Nata's was a deep, 
sweet nature, and her heart beat truly ; and 
though she could struggle for herself, she broke 
down in nervous terror for Joanna. 

" Oh, Signora," she said, a little wildly, " all 
this time I have tried not to feel, and to-day I 
am all like one who is dead. I don't feel, and 
yet I know that I am suffering. Yesterday was 
a terrible day — so beautiful, and yet so sad ; all 
I saw only seemed like beautiful pain, and Jo- 
anna walked beside me, saying, ' Courage, cour- 
age ;' and now, if harm has come to her, if wild 
beasts — if — " Nata broke out into sobs. 

" Listen, my dear," I said. "This is all non- 
sense ; there are no wild beasts in these woods 
except little squirrels and rabbits, and when 
Joanna comes home we will give her the scold- 
ing she deserves for frightening us all. Now 
you must lie down and wait patiently till the 
messengers return. Don't, my child." She was 
kissing my hand just like a child. She did not 
lie down, but sat on the straw chair beside the 
bed, resting her aching head on the dark cot- 
ton counterpane. The tears and tlie silence 
soothed her, and now that she had ceased to 
struggle against her terrors they seemed to ha- 
rass her less. At last she was quiet, and I, sit- 
ting in the window, took up a book and tried to 
read. It was a pretty story, but I could not fix 
my mind upon it. I looked at Madame Hofer 
standing in the gallery and resting after her 
morning's work, and then at the fir-trees, and 
at the brigiit azure beyond them ; and then I 
watched little Ui-se and her brother running 
across the green. They ran straight towards a 
peasant-woman who was knitting a stocking in 
the sun. At first I thought they were at play, 
for they clung to her skirt and the woman bent 
over them. I fancied she might be their moth- 
er. She dropped her knitting and caught lit- 
tle Urse's hand. Something in her action dis- 
tui-bed me, and at the same time I saw Ma- 
dame Hofer lean forward over the low wooden 
gallery. It might be a fancy, but my heart be- 
gan to beat with a nervous apprehension as I 
put down my book and went out quickly. 
When I came out on the balcony I found that 
it was indeed no play that was going on : the 
children were sobbing, and their mother, with a 
scared face, was hurrying towards the house. 

" Frau Hofer!" she said, "come you quick 
— here is something happened in the wood !" 
We ran down the steps together. I had left 
the door of my room open, and at the cry the 
woman gave Nata came running out too. She 
seemed to guess what had happened almost be- 
fore the children spoke. 

"Joanna was lying at the foot of the 



MORETTl'S CAMPANULA. 



Schlern," they said. " The gentleman found 
her, and he called Hans," sobbed little Urse, 
'* when he was climbing for strawberries, and I 
called Peter, and when Peter came he told us 
to stop, and ran away, and he did not come 
back, and she was lying quite still in her hat." 

" And there was blood uponit," said Hans, 
"and Urse said she was dead, and the gentle- 
man got angry, and said, ' Why did no one 
come?' and I was frightened. And Urse came 
too." 

" I could not stay alone with the stranger, he 
frightened me," sobbed little Urse. 

"You heartless children, to leave her !" cried 
Frau Hofer, striking at Hans. Nata caught her 
hand. " It is well that they came to tell ns ; 
now we can go to her," she said, quite calmly, 
and in a faint shrill voice. " Hans will show 
the way. Will you tell some one to follow us, 
Cousin Hofer, with wine and a blanket to carry 
her home." Nata was the calmest and most 
collected of us all. 

The children led the way along the winding 
path, under the trees ; on our way we met 
Peter, the carter, flying through the brushwood. 
He had been, I don't know where, to leave a 
message for the doctor. ' '-He is in these parts 
to-day," he said breathless; "he is curing 
Anton Burlis's mother of her fever. Courage," 
said he, kindly, "I guessed where she was gone. 
Joanna is not dead, don't fear. So I said to the 
man who found her, ' Ho ! she will live. I gave 
myself just such another crack on the head, and 
I am none the worse.' " Madame Hofer slirug- 
ged her shoulders. " Your head!" she said, 
expressively. 

" The stranger is gone," said Peter. ' ' Here 
she is by this great rock." 

She was not dead, poor dear child. She was 
lying senseless, alone, in her hat, as the chil- 
dren described her, in a still green nook, at the 
foot of the great Schlern mountain. Ever}'- 
where hung green veils of light, and of soft 
mosses spreading over every stone and path- 
way, and green misty depths showed beyond the 
stems of the fir-trees. Was this sweet silent 
valley the valley of the shadow of death? I 
wondered. Was this a death-bed? — this car- 
pet, where gentians and harebells were shining, 
and white petals blown by the wind, and insects 
gathering sweet juices out of silver stars. Even 
from the rocks green creepers were hanging; 
those cruel massed rocks from which she must 
have fallen ! 

At the time I hardly saw any thing but her 
pale lips. Now the whole scene rises up before 
me in its intense sadness and beauty. That 
still green dell with the sound of the crickets 
whistling, Madame Hofer's scared face, the 
children hanging back behind their mother's 
skirt, and Nata, tender and passionate, kneel- 
ing by the poor senseless body, raising the pale 
head in her arms, gently loosening the hat from 
the clotted plaits to which it had been fastened. 
If Joanna lived, this absurd hat had probably 
saved her life. Dear honest Joanna ! surelv 



there was no life so precious among us all ; so 
useful, so kindly, so cheerful and contented. 
Soon some of the good people came from the 
bath-house, bringing a hay-cloth to carry her 
home. They laid her gently down ujion it ; 
they were all subdued by that mystery of inani- 
tion, and spoke below their breaths. Only Peter 
talked out as usual, and described " his crack " 
to each new-comer. 



XIII. 

Something now happened which seemed to 
add to the strangeness and unreality of this sad 
moment. For some minutes past a murmuring 
sound had reached us from the heights above, 
and we now saw a quaint procession — men and 
women — passing along the edge of the clift"over- 
head, in conical hats like poor Joanna's; the 
men wore flapping waistcoats like Peter's ; 
they all held rosaries in their hands, and were 
praying aloud as they went. They did not see 
us, nor did they hear Peter when lie called ; 
their prayers drowned his voice. It is not the 
first time that such a thing has happened. As 
he cried "Hola!" they walked on and disap- 
peared, but another voice, nearer at hand, and 
from a different direction, answered, and in a 
minute more a figure came leaping from rock to 
rock with quick awkward haste, and hurried to- 
wards us. . . . Did I not recognize it ? Tiiose 
long loose limbs, that nervous liaste, that green 
vasculum swinging from its strap ! I looked 
once, and then again bewildered, and then at 
Nata, who was gazing with a changingfiice. . . . 
Yes, she too recognized him : it was the Count, 
he was unmistakable. "Ah, there he is come 
back," said Peter, in a satisfied tone. " He 
found her, but he did not know what to do till 
I came up." Even at this moment, to my shame 
I confess, a thought of what the future might 
have in store came to me. Dear honest Jo- 
anna herself, would she not have been the first 
to share it. The load seemed lightened. All 
must be well for Nata, since Count Saverio had 
come to her. All well ! Of what was I think- 
ing ? Here was De Pavis trembling and scared, 
Nata crying, and our poor Joanna lying sense- 
less, still in her bearer's arms, with her fair hair 
clotted with blood. 

"Thank heaven you are here! I thought 
you were never coming," said the Count, com- 
ing straight towards us and not looking sur- 
prised to see us. " I had gone a little way to 
look for you. We must get her home. I found 
her by the strangest, saddest chance. Don't cry, 
Nata; she imist get well." He was trembling. 
He seemed quite unnerved, and unlike himself; 
perhajis for the first time in his life he had come 
in contact with a real sorrow. 

And so they carried her home, quickly and 
carefully, along the little winding paths, cross- 
ing the little brooks, stooping beneath the 
branches of tlie fir-trees. Peter was at Jo- 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



381 



anna's head, two stout peasant-women held the 
cloth at her feet, and Nata walked at her side. 
The first great burst of summer was over, and 
the life of this sylvan world seemed subdued to 
a gentler radiance. The year was ending in 
peaceful dissolution. But our Joanna's life 
was not yet at its end ; nor had her warm heart 
ceased to beat forever for those she loved. 
Many of the peasants from the bath-house had 
joined us, and came quietly along. More than 
one of these compassionate people fell down on 
their knees by the wayside cross to pray for Jo- 
anna's life, as she was carried by, with that si- 
lent face, and the heavy hand hanging over the 
side of the cloth. 

All the way back Saverio never spoke, nor 
did Nata seem to heed his presence : her whole 
wistful heart seemed given to Joanna. But as 
they walked along, I saw him looking at her 
with a humble pitiful look that touched me and 
made me like him better than I had ever done. 
She was so changed, so thin, so sad. Even his 
return could not bring back her bloom all in one 
moment. What a mystery it is that the happi- 
ness, the light of one life, should be so often in 
tiie gift of another's will ! Which of us is there 
that does not hold chords tliat may vibrate from 
the very hearts of those about us ? Let us pray 
that witli reverent and loving care we may use 
our power, half-unconscious as it is. . . . 

I hurried on before them to make ready a 
room, and I had hardly prepared every thing, 
with Audrey's help, when she said, looking from 
the gallery, "Here they come, and there is the 
doctor." The doctor came walking through the 
wood, and met the little procession as it reached 
the foot of tlie wooden stairs. Many brown 
hands were held out to greet him, and he nod- 
ded right and left as he followed Joanna's bear- 
ers up the creaking wooden flight. He was an 
old man with long white hair and a staff and 
silver pipe, which he gave me to hold while he 
helped to lay Joanna on the straw bed which 
had been made ready. 

"There are too many here," he said, motion- 
ing the people gently out of the room. " She 
will soon revive." 

"That is as I told you," said Peter, with a 
slap upon his knee. Then he jerked his chin. 
" What is that she is holding in her hand?" he 
said. 

Madame Hofer gently unclasped the poor fin- 
gers and took a tuft of crushed purple flowers 
from between them. " It is only a flower !" she 
said. 

"It is Moretti's Campanula," said the doctor, 
taking it into his own hand. " She must have 
caught it as she fell, poor child. It grows high 
up on the rock." 

There was a moment's silence, then a sudden 
burst of new tears. 

" Oh, my dear, my poor dear!" sobbed Nata, 
as she fell on her knees, and hiding her face in 
her hands. "The flower, the lilac flower! 
Oh, Signora, do you remember?" 

Did I remember I — my foolish words and non- 



sense — talk of charms and magic, Joanna's wist- 
ful eyes and self-reproach that night upon the 
terrace. Only too well I remembered it all. 
Could it be that I had done all this mischief by 
my idle words? Ah me ! the reproach was mine 
now, and I was too old to cry it away like For- 
tunata. 

The Count seemed uneasy too; he turned 
very red, and I think he muttered something 
about the "Devil take that infernal flower!" 
as he left the room ; but he came back wistfully 
the next instant to say, " Courage, Nata : don't 
cry!" And he put his arm round her and 
raised her up. She looked at him through her 
tears with a half-doubting trustful look,like some 
little wild animal that trembles yet knows no 
fear. 

Then they all went away, and we undressed 
Joanna as well as we could. It seemed an age 
while the doctor examined her. She was cruel- 
ly bruised and cut and sprained on the side on 
which she had fallen ; and there, besides, was 
the one deep cruel wound beneath her hair; but 
the skull was uninjured ; the high hat had truly 
saved her life. Peter stood outside ready to 
go off again for medieine and bandages to the 
Alp where the doctor was staying ; Nata's tears 
kept dropping — dropping on the counterpane, on 
the straw mattress, on the dear pale face. They 
were softer, happier tears, as Joanna's color re- 
vived a little beneath this gentle rain ; light 
came into her dim eyes, she stirred and whis- 
j)ered, " Nata, here !" then she opened her soft 
lids wide and looked a little wildly from one to 
the other. The doctor nodded. "All goes 
well," he said ; and then he wrote something 
against the wall, and he went to the door and 
gave it to Peter, who bounded down the gallery 
in two steps. There was a whisper outside 
amongst the peasants, while here-inside Madame 
Hofer stood with a candle and a pair of scissors ; 
and Nata was hanging over Joanna's bed silent- 
ly, and yet with all her tenderest heart's signs 
and unspoken language welcoming her back to 
life after that awful journey from which she was 
returning. 

"The Signora!" Joanna said, recognizing 
me; then she began feeling about the bedclothes 
and faltered something about a flower. 

" Hush — hush ! It is safe, you are safe ; all, 
all is well," said Nata, clasping her hands. 
" Lie still while we thank God for your deliver- 
ance from peril." 

Some minutes afterwards I saw the doctor 
looking about uneasily from one side to the oth- 
er. "Is any thing amiss?" I asked anxious- 
ly. "I have mislaid my pipe," he said, and 
then I discovered that I had been holding the 
pipe all the while in my hand. 

The doctor had done his work, and sat chat- 
tering with the old oi'acles down below. Jo- 
anna was unconscious again, but this time it 
was only a quiet sleep after the pain and fatigue 
of having her hurts dressed and attended to. 
H., with her kind face beaming with sympathy, 



882 



MORETTI'S CAMPANULA. 



came gently stirring the door-liandle to call me 
to supper. 

"This morning it was Joanna. Now it is 
Fortunata who is lost, just when supper is ready 
too," said Madame Hofer, meeting us, and speak- 
ing Avith some asperity. 



XIV. 

H. WAITED till she was gone, then she laid 
her hand on my arm and pointed to two dim 
figures on a seat beneath a tree. As we were 
looking at them they got up and came strolling 
towards the house. A minute or two after they 
came into the dining-room. They stood at the 
door, blinking their eyes in the dazzle of two 
candles and the soup-tureen. Perhaps I ought 
to have had more apprehensions, but somehow 
since Saverio's return I had felt none, and I 
went to meet them, saying, "Come, here is the 
soup. Joanna is asleep, and Urse's mother is 
with her, and we are only waiting for you." 

"I am sorry to have detained you," said the 
Count, standing quite erect, with a look of such 
real happiness in iiis face that it was not difti- 
cuh to foresee what was coming, while Nata 
took my hand and pressed it, with a long soft 
thrill that told meal) I wanted to know. How- 
ever, they said no more just then, and all sup- 
per-time the Count was much as usual. Nata 
ate notliing, but sat with innocent, happy eyes, 
looking as I had never seen her look before. I 
was struck, for the first time, by her extreme 
beauty and dazzling brilliancy of color. It was 
like sunlight shining after a cloud had passed 
away. During supper the Count told us that 
he had been busy of late completing a collec- 
tion, and writing the last chapters of his work 
upon mountain campanulas. There are no 
less than sixty different species of these charm- 
ing flowers, he informed us, of which forty are 
to be found in the Alps alone. " I wished to 
give my wliole mind to my work," he said, with 
an odd look as he ate his chicken. " My book 
has given me a great deal of trouble, and taken 
a long time to write," he added. 



Almost too long a time for his happiness, I 
thought. After supper I went out into the gal- 
lery again. Seeing me standing a little apart, 
Nata came up, flung her arms round me, and 
began whispering her happiness in the twi- 
light. 

"Oh, Signora, he loves me — he loves me — 
he is my betrothed!" 

Afterwards I heard more, not from Nata nor 
from the Count, but from my old friend Delia 
Santa ; she it was who had warned him of the 
cruel gossip of the place. He was greatly dis- 
turbed and shocked, and very indignant. He 
had never faced the matter fairly until then. 
In spite of his aunt's horrified warnings lie 
started at once to follow Nata, and only once 
(so he confessed long afterwards) did he hes- 
itate at the thought of the storm he should 
bring about his head by such a marriage. Tliis 
was a minute before chance, or Providence, 
brought him to the rock where poor Joanna 
was lying. 

How sweet the evening fell after that long 
toilsome day ! The full moon came sliding up 
from behind the roof, the lights gleamed, the 
dark figures passed, and very very far away the 
echo of an evening hymn reached us from one 
of the Alps. The doctor and the priest passed 
us smoking their pipes. "You may be quite 
at ease about your patient," said the doctor, 
nodding as he went by. 

It seemed too much almost. " You will nev- 
er be able to persuade Joanna that the purple 
flower is not a charm," said H. 

" I will try," I said, feeling very much 
ashamed. " I shall tell her that charms are 
not the things themselves, but are signs of the 
facts they represent. When I put my liand in 
yours, it is a sign that I love you, that I am 
thinking of you. When people love eacli other 
truly, any thing, every thing becomes a charm ; 
and flowers, and bits of Iiair, and old ribbons, 
and rings, and all sorts of rubbish, become price- 
less." 

"I think I understand you," said II. smiling; 
"but I don't think Joanna will." And I am 
afraid H. was right. 



MISCELLANIES. 



LITTLE SCHOLARS 



Yesterday morning, as I was walking up 
a street in Pimlico, I came upon a crowd of lit- 
tle persons issuing from a narrow alley. Ever 
so many little people there were streaming 
through a wicket ; running children, shouting 
children, loitering children, chattering children, 
and children spinning tops by the way, so that 
the whole street was awakened by the pleasant 
childish clatter. As I stand for an instant to 
see the procession go by, one little girl pops me 
an impromptu courtesy, at which another from a 
distant quarter, not behindhand in politeness, 
pops mc another ; and presently quite an irreg- 
ular little volley of courtesyings goes off in every 
direction. Then I blandly inquire if school is 
over ? and if there is any body left in the house ? 
A little brown-eyes nods her head, and says, 
' ' There's a great many people left in the house." 
And so tiiere are, sure enough, as I find when 
I get in. 

Down a narrow yard, with the workshops on 
one side and the schools on the other, in at a 
little door which leads into a big room where 
there are rafters, maps hanging on the walls, 
and remarks in immense letters, such as, " Cof- 
fee IS GOOD FOR MY BREAKFAST," and pictUrCS 

of useful things, with the well-thumbed story 
underneath ; a stove in the middle of the room ; 
a paper hanging up on the door with the names of 
the teachers ; and everywhere wooden benches 
and tables, made low and small for little legs 
and arms. 

Well, the school-room is quite empty and 
silent now, and the little turmoil has poured 
eagerly out at the door. It is twelve o'clock, 
the sun is shining in the court, and something 
better than schooling is going on in the kitchen 
yonder. Who cares now where coffee comes 
from ? or which are the chief cities in Europe ? 
or in Avhat year Stephen came to the throne ? 
For is not twelve o'clock dinner-time with all sen- 
sible people ? and what periods of history, what 
future aspirations, what distant events, are as 
important to us — grown-up folks, and children, 
too — as this pleasant daily I'ecurring one ? 

The kind, motherly school-mistress who 
brought me in tells me that for a shilling half a 
dozen little boys and girls can be treated to a 
wholesome meal. I wonder if it smells as good 
to them as it does to mc, when I pull my shil- 
ling out of my pocket. The food costs more 
than twopence, but there is a fund to which 
people subscribe, and, with its help, the kitchen 
cooks all through the winter months. 

All the children seem very fond of the good 
Bb 



Mrs. K . As we leave the school-room, one 

little thing comes up crying, and clinging to 
her, " A boy has been and 'it me !" But when 
the mistress says, " Well, never mind, you shall 
have your dinner," the child is instantly con- 
soled ; "and you, and you, and you," she con- 
tinues ; but this selection is too heart-rending ; 
and with the help of another lucky shilling no- 
body present is left out. I remember particu- 
larly a lank child, with great black eyes and 
fuzzy hair, and a pinched gray face, who stood 
leaning against a wall in the sun : once in the 
Pontine Marshes, years ago, I remember seeing 
such another figure. "That poor thing is sev- 
enteen," says Mrs. K . "She sometimes 

loiters here all day long ; she has no mother ; 
and she often comes and tells me her father 
is so drunk she dare not go home. I always 
give her a dinner Avhen I can. This is the 
kitchen." 

The kitchen is a delightful little clean-scrub- 
bed place, with rice pudding baking in the oven, 
and a young mistress and a big girl busy bring- 
ing in great caldrons full of the mutton broth I 
have been scenting all this time. It is a fresh, 
honest, hungry smell, quite different from that 
unwholesome compound of fry and sauce, and , 
hot, pungent spice, and stew and mess, which 
comes steaming up, some seven hours later, into 
our dining-rooms, from the reeking kitchens be- 
low. Here a poor woman is waiting, with a jug, 
and a round-eyed baby. The mistress tells me 
the people in the neighborhood are too glad to 
buy what is left of the children's dinner. 

" Look what good stuff it is," says Mrs. K , 

and she shows me a bowl full of the jelly to 
which it turns when cold. As the two girls 
come stepping tlirough the sunny doorwa}', 
with the smoking jar between them, I think Mr. 
Millais might make a pretty picture of the little 
scene ; but my attention is suddenly distracted 
by the round-eyed baby, who is peering down 
into the great soup-jng with such wide, wide 
open eyes, and little hands outstretched — such 
an eager happy face, that it almost made one 
laugh, and cry too, to see. The baby must be 
a favorite, for he is served, and goes off in his 
mother's arms, keeping vigilant watch over the 
jug, while four or five other jugs and women 
are waiting still in the next room. Then into 
rows of little yellow basins our mistress pours 
the broth, and we now go in to see the company 
in the dining-hall, waiting for its banquet. Ah 
me ! but it is a pleasanter sight to see than any 
company in all the land. Somehow, as the 



386 



MISCELLANIES. 



children say grace, I feel as if there was indeed 
a blessing on the food : a blessing which brings 
color into these wan cheeks, ancl strengtii and 
warmth into tliese wasted little limbs. Mean- 
while, the expectant company is growing rather 
impatient, and is biittering the benches witli its 
spoons, and tapping ncigliboring heads as well. 
There goes a little guest, scrambling from his i 
place across the room and back again. So 
many are here to-day, that they have not all 
got seats. I see tlie wan girl still standing 
against the wall, and there is her brother — a so- 
ciable little fellow, all dressed in corduroys — 
who is making funny faces at me across the 
room, at which some other little boys burst out 
laughing. But the infants on the dolls' benches, 
at the other end, are the best fun. There they 
are — three, four, five years old — whispering, and 
chattering, and tumbling over one another. 
Sometimes one infant falls suddenly forward, 
with its nose upon the table, and stops there 
quite contentedly ; sometimes another disap- 
pears entirely under the legs, and is tugged up 
by its neighbors. A certain number of the in- 
fants have their dinner every day, the mistress 

tells me. Mrs. has said so, and hers is the 

kind hand which has provided for all these 
young ones ; while a same kind heart has 
schemed how to shelter, to feed, to clothe, to 
teach, the greatest number of these hungry and 
cold and neglected little children. 

As I am replying to the advances of my 
young friend in the corduroys, I suddenly hear 
a cry of "Ooo! ooo I ooo ! — noo spoons — noo 
spoons — 000 ! ooo ! ooo !" and all the little 
hands stretch out eagerlj^ as one of the big girls 
goes by with a paper of shining metal s])oons. 
By this time the basins of soup are travelling 
round, with hunches of home-made bread. 
"The infants are to have pudding first," says 
the mistress, coming forward ; and, in a few 
minutes more, all the little birds are busy peck- 
ing at their bread and pudding, of which they 
take up very small mouthfuls, in very big spoons, 
and let a good deal slobber down over their 
pinafores. 

One little curly-haired boy, with a very grave 
face, was eating pudding very slowly and sol- 
emnly, so I said to him : — 

" Do you like pudding best ?" 

Little Boy. " Isss." 

"And can you read?" 

Little Boy. " Isss." 

" And write?" 

Little Boy. " Isss." 

" And have you got a sister ?" 

Little Boy. "Isss." 

' ' And does she wash vour face so nice- 
ly ?" 

LJttle Boy, extra solemn. "No, see is wite a 
little girl ; see is on'y four year old." 

" And how old are you ?" 

IJttle Boy, with great dignity. "Jam fi' year 
old." 

Then he told me Mrs. Willis " wassed " his 
face, and he brought his sister to school. 



"Where is your sister?" says the mistress, 
going by. 

But four-years was not forthcoming. 

" I s'pose see has wait home," says the child, 
and goes on with his pudding. 

This little pair are orphans out of the work- 
house, Mrs. K told me. But somebody pays 

Mrs. Willis for their keep. 

There was another funny little thing, very 
small, sitting between two bigger boys, to whom 
I said : 

" Are you a little boy or a little girl ?" 

"Little dirl," says this baby, quite confident- 
ly. 

" No, you ain't," cries the left-hand neighbor, 
very much excited. 

" Yes, she is," says right-hand neighbor. 

And then three or four more join in, each tak- 
ing a different view of the question. All this 
time corduroys is still grinning and making faces 
in his corner. I admire his brass buttons, upon 
which three or four more children instantly 
crowd round to look at them. One is a poor 
little deformed fellow, to whom buttons would 
be of very little use. He is in quite worn and 
ragged clothes ; he looks as pale and tliin almost 
as that poor girl I first noticed. He has no 
mother; he and his brother live alone with their 
father, who is out all day, and the children have 
to do every thing for themselves. The young 
ones here who have no mothers seem by far the 
worst off. This little deformed boy, poor as he 
is, finds something to give away. Presently I 
see him scrambling over the backs of the others, 
and feeding them with small shreds of meat, 
which he takes out of his soup with his grubby 
little fingers, and which one little boy, called 
Thompson, is eating with immense relish. Mrs. 

K here comes up, and says that those who 

are hungry are to have some more. Thompson 
has some more, and so does another rosy little 
fellow: but the others have hardly finished what 
was first given. them, and the very little ones 
send off their pudding half eaten, and ask for 
soup. The mistresses here are quite touching- 
ly kind and thoughtful. I did not hear a sharp 
tone. All the children seemed at home, and 
happy, and gently dealt with. However cruel- 
ly want and care and harshness haunt their own 
homes, here at least there are only kind words 
and comfort for these poor little pilgrims Avhose 

toil has begun so early. Mrs. told me once, 

that often in winter time these children come 
barefooted through the snow, and so cold and 
hungry that they have fallen off their seats half 
fiiinting. We may be sure that such little suf- 
ferei-s — thanks to these Good Samaritans — will 
be tenderly picked up and cared for. But, I 
wonder, must there always be children in the 
world hungry and deserted ? and will there nev- 
er, out of all the abundance of the earth, be 
enough to spare to content those who want so lit- 
tle to make them happy ? 

Mrs. came in while I was still at the 

school, and took me over the workshops where 
the elder bovs learn to carpenter and carve. 



LITTLE SCHOLARS. 



3S7 



Scores of drawing-rooms in Belgravia are bris- 
tling with the pretty little tables and ornaments 
these young artificers design. A young man 
with a scriptural name superintends the work ; 
the boys are paid for their labor, and send out 
red velvet and twisted legs, and wood ornament- 
ed in a hundred devices. There is an industri- 
al class for girls, too. The best and oldest are 
taken in, and taught housework and kitchen- 
work and sewing. Even the fathers and moth- 
ers come in for a share of the good things, and 
are invited to tea sometimes, and amused in the 
evening with magic lanterns, and conjurers, and 
lecturings. I do not dwell at greater length 
upon the industrial part of these schools, because 
I want to speak of another very similar institu- 
tion I went to see another day. 

On my way thitiier I iiad occasion to go 
through an old church-yard, full of graves and 
sunshine ; a quaint old suburban place, with 
tree-tops and old brick houses all round about, 
and ancient windows looking down upon the 
quiet tombstones. Some children were playing 
among the graves, and two rosy little girls in big 
bonnets were sitting demurely on a stone, and 
grasping two babies that were placidly basking 
in the sun. The little girls look up and grin as 
I go by. I would ask tliem the way, only I know 
they won't answer, and so I go on, out at an old 
iron gate, with a swinging lamp, up "Church 
Walk " (so it is written), and along a trim little 
terrace, to where a maid-of-all-work is scrubbing 
at her steps. When I ask the damsel my way 

to B Street, she says slie "do-ant know 

B Street, but there's Little Davis Street 

round the corner ;" and wlien I say I'm afraid 
Little Davis Street is no good to me, she says, 
"'Tain't Gunter's Row, is it?" So I go off in 
despair, and after some minutes of brisk walk- 
ing, find myself turning up the trim little ter- 
race again, where the maid-of-all-work is still 
l)usy at her steps. This time, as we have a sort 
of acquaintance, I tell her that I am looking for 
a house where girls are taken in, and educated, 
and taught to be housemaids. At which confi- 
dence she brightens up, and says : "There's a 
'ouse round the-ar with somethink wrote on the 
door, jest where the little boy's a trundlin' of 
his 'oop." 

And so, sure enough, following the hoop, 1 
come to an old-fasliioned house in a court-yard, 
and ring at a wooden door on which "Girls' 
Industrial Schools " is painted up in white let- 
ters. 

A little industrious girl, in a lilac pinafore, 
let me in, with a courtesy. 

" Jlay I come in and see the place ?" say I. 

"Please, yes," says she (another courtesy). 
"Please, what name? — please, walk this way." 

"This Avay" leads through the court, where 
clothes are hanging on lines, into a little office- 
room, where my guide leaves me, with yet an- 
other little courtesy. In a minute the mistress 
comes out from the inner room. She is a kind 
smiling young woman, with a fresh face and a 
pleasant manner. She takes me in, and I see a 



dozen more girls in lilac pinafores reading round 
a deal table. They look mostly about thirteen 
or fourteen years old, I ask if this is all the 
school. 

" No, not all," the mistress says, counting, 
" some are in the laundry, and some are not at 
home. When they are old enough, they go out 
into the neighborhood to help to wash, or cook, 
or what not. Go on, girls!" and the girls in- 
stantly begin to read again, and the mistress, 
opening a door, brings us out into the passage. 
"We have room for twenty-two," says the little 
mistress; "and we dress them and feed them 
and teach them as well as we can. On week 
days they wear any thing we can find for them, 
but they have very nice frocks on Sundays. I 
never leave them ; I sit with them, and sleep 
among them, and walk with them; they are al- 
ways friendly and affectionate to me and among 
themselves, and are very good companions." 

In answer to my questions, she said that most 
of the children were put in by friends who paid 
half a crown a week for them, sometimes the 
parents themselves, but they could rarely afford 
it. That besides this, and what the girls could 
earn, £200 a year is required for the rent of the 
house and expenses. " It has always been 
made up," says the mistress, " but we can't 
help being very aaixious at times, as we have 
nothing certain, nor any regular subscriptions. 
" Won't you see the laundiy ?" she adds, open- 
ing a door. 

In the laundry is a steam, and a clatter, and 
irons, and linen, and a little mangle, turned by 
two little girls, while two or three more aro 
busy ironing under the superintendence of a 
washerwoman with tucked-up sleeves ; piles of 
shirt-collars and handkerchiefs and linen are 
lying on the shelves, shirts and clothes are 
hanging on lines across the room. The little 
girls don't stop, but go on busily. 

" Where is Mary Anne ?" says the mistress, 
with a little conscious pride. 

"There she is, mum," says the washerwom- 
an, and Mary Anne steps out blushing from be- 
hind- the mangle, with a hot iron in her hand, 
and a hanging head. 

"Mary Anne is our chief laundry-maid," 
says the mistress, as we come out into the hall 
again. "For the first year I could make noth- 
ing of her ; she was miserable in the kitchen, 
she couldn't bear housework, she wouldn't learn 
her lessons. In fact, I was quite unhappy about 
her, till one day I set her to ironing ; she took to 
it instantly, and has been quite cheerful and busy 
ever since." 

So leaving Mary Anne to her vocation in 
life, we went up stairs to the dormitories. The 
first floor is let to a lady, and one of the girls is 
chosen to wait upon her; the second floor is 
where they sleep, in fresh light rooms with 
open windows, and sweet spring breezes blow- 
ing in across gardens an^ court-yards. The 
place was delightfully tnm and fresh and peace- 
ful ; the little gray-coated beds stood in rows, 
with a basket at the foot of eacli, and texts were 



388 



MISCELLANIES. 



hanging up on the wall. In the next room 
stood a wardrobe full of the girls' Sunday 
clothes, of which one of them keeps the key ; 
after this came the mistress's own room, as 
fresh and light and well-kept as the rest. 

These little maidens scrub and cook and 
wash and sew. They make broth for the poor, 
and puddings. They are taught to read and 
write and count, and tiiey learn geography and 
history as well. jMany of them come from dark 
unwholesome alleys in the neighborhood — from 
a dreary country of dirt and ci-ime and foul talk. 
In this little convent all is fresh and pure, and 
tlie sunshine pours in at every window. I 
don't know that the life is very exciting there, 
or that the days spent at the mangle, or round 
the deal table, can be very stirring ones. But 
surely they are well spent, learning useful arts, 
and order and modesty and cleanliness. Think 
of the cellars and slums from whicli these chil- 
dren come, and of the quiet little haven where 
they are fitted for the struggle of life, and arc 
taught to be good and industrious and sober 
and honest. It is only for a year or two, and 
then they will go out into the world again ; 
into a world indeed of which we know but little 
— a world of cooks and kitchen-maids and gen- 
eral servants. I dare say these little industri- 
ous girls, sitting round that table and spelling 
out the Gospel of St. John this sunny afternoon, 
are longing and wistfully thinking about that 
wondrous coming time. Meanwhile the quiet 
hour goes by. I say farewell to the kind, smil- 
ing mistress ; Mary Anne is still busy among 
her irons ; I hear the mangle click as I pass, 
and the wooden door opens to let me out. 

In another old house, standing in a deserted 
old square near the City, there is a school which 
interested me as much as any of those I have 
come across — a school for little Jewish boys and 
girls. We find a tranquil, roomy old house 
with light windows, looking out into the quiet 
square with its ancient garden ; a caiTcd stair- 
case ; a little hall paved with black and white 
mosaic, whence two doors lead respectively to 
the Boys' and Girls' schools. 

Presently a little girl unlocks one of these 
doors, and runs up before us into the school- 
room — a long, well-lighted room full of other 
little girls busy at their desks: little Hebrew 
maidens with Oriental faces, who look up at us 
as we come in. This is always rather an 

alarming moment ; but Dr. , who knows 

the children, comes kindly to our help, and be- 
gins to tell us about the school. " It is an ex- 
periment," he says, "and one which has an- 
swered admirably well. Any children are ad- 
mitted. Christians as well as Jews; and none 
come without paying something every week, 
twopence or threepence, as they can afford, for 
many of them belong to the very poorest of the 
Jewish community. They receive a very high 
class of education^ (VVhen I presently see 
what they are doing, and hear the questions 
they can answer, I begin to feel a very great re- 
spect for these little bits of girls in pinafores. 



and for the people who are experimenting on 
them.) "But the chief aim of the school is to 
teach them to help themselves, and to inculcate 
an honest self-dependence and independence." 
And indeed, as I look at them, I can not but 
be struck with a certain air of respectability and 
uprightness among these little creatures, as they 
sit there, so self-possessed, keen-eyed, well-man- 
nered. " Could you give them a parsing les- 
son ?" the doctor asks the school-mistress, who 
shakes her head, and says it is their day for 
arithmetic, and she may not interrupt the order 
of their studies ; but that they may answer any 
questions the doctor likes to put to them. 

Quite little things, with their hair in curls, 
can tell you about tons and hundredweights, 
and how many horses it would take to draw a 
ton, and how many little girls to draw two- 
thirds of a ton, if so many little girls went to a 
hoi'se ; and if a horse were added, or a horse 
taken away, or two-eighths of the little girls, or 
three-fourths of the horse, or one-sixth of the 
ton — until the room begins to spin breathlessly 
round and round, and I am left ever so far be- 
hindhand. 

"Is avoirdupois an English word?" Up 
goes a little hand, with fingers woVking eagerly, 
and a pretty little creature with long black hair 
and a necklace cries out that it is French, and 
means, have treiyht. 

Then the doctor asks about early English his- 
tory, and the hands still go up, and they know 
all about it ; and so they do about civilization, 
and despotism, and charters, and Picts and 
Scots, and dynasties, and early lawgivers, and 
colonization, and reformation. 

"Who was Martin Luther? Why did lie 
leave the Catholic Church ? What were in- 
dulgences ?" 

"You gave the Pope lots of money, sir, and 
he gave you dispensations." This was from our 
little portress. 

There was another little shrimp of a thing, 
with wonderful, long-slit, flashing eyes, who 
could answer any thing almost, and whom the 
other little girls accordingly brought forward in 
triumph from a back row. 

"Give me an instance of a free country?" 
asks the tired questioner. 

"England, sir!" cry the little girls in a 
shout. 

" And now of a country which is not free." 

"America!" cry two little voices; and then 
one adds, "because there are slaves, sir." 
"And France," says a third; "and we have 
seen the emperor in the picture-sliops." 

As I listen to them, I can not help wishing 
that many of our little Christians were taught 
to be as independent and self-respecting in their 
dealings with the grown-up people who come to 
look at them. One would fancy that servility 
was a sacred institution, we cling to it so fond- 
ly. We seem to expect an absurd amount of 
respect from our inferiors ; we are ready to pay 
back just as much to those above us in station : 
and hence I think, notwithstanding all the kind- 



LITTLE SCHOLARS. 



ness of heart, all the well-meant and well-spent 
exertion we see in the world, there is often too 
gi-eat an inequality between those who teach 
and those who would learn, those who give and 
those whose harder part it is to receive. 

We were quite sorry at last when the doctor 
made a little bow, and said, " Good-morning, 
young ladies," quite politely, to his pupils. It 
was too late to stop and talk to the little boys 
down below, but we went for a minute into an 
inner room out of the large boys' school-room, 
and there we found half a dozen little men, 
with their hats on their heads, sitting on their 
benches, reading the Psalms in Hebrew ; and so 
we stood, for this minute before we came away, 
listening to David's words spoken in David's 
tongue, and ringing rather sadly in the boys' 
touching childish voice. 

But this is not by any means the principal 
school which the Jews have established in Lon- 
don. Deep in the heart of the City — beyond 
St. Paul's — beyond the Cattle Market, with its 
countless pens — beyond Finsbury Square, and 
tlie narrow Barbican, travelling on through a 
dirty, close, thickly-peopled region, you come to 
Bell Lane, in Spitalfields. And here you may 
step in at a door and suddenly find yourself in a 
wonderful country, in the midst of an unknown 
people, iu a great hall sounding ivith the voices 
of hundreds of Jewish children. I know not if 
it is always so, or if this great assemblage is 
only temporary, daring the preparation for the 
Passover, but all along the sides of this great 
room were curtained divisions, and classes sit- 
ting divided, busy at their tasks, and children 
upon children as far as you could see ; and 
somehow as you look you almost see, not these 
children only, but their forefathers, the Chil- 
dren of Israel, camping in their tents, as they 
camped at Succoth, when they fled out of the 
land of Egypt and the house of bondage. Some 
of these here present to-day are still flying from 
the house of bondage ; many of them are the 
children of Poles, and Russians, and Hungari- 
ans, who have escaped over here to avoid con- 
scription, and who arrive destitute and in great 
misery. But to be friendless, and in want, and 
poverty-stricken, is the best recommendation for 
admission to this noble charity. And here, as 
elsewhere, any one who comes to the door is 
taken in. Christian as well as Jew. 

I have before me now the Report for the year 
5G19 (1858), during which 1800 children have 
come to these schools daily. Ten thousand in 
all have been admitted since the foundation of 
the school. The working alone of the estab- 
lishment — salaries, repairs, books, laundresses, 
etc. — amounts to more than £2000 a year. Of 
this a very considerable portion goes in salaries 
to its officers, of whom I count more than fifty 
in the first page of the pamphlet. "£12 to a 
man for washing boys," is surely well-spent 
money ; " £3 to a beadle ; £14 for brooms and 
brushes; £1 19s. Gd. for repair of clocks," are 
among the items. The annual subscriptions 
are under £500, and the very existence of the 



place (so says the Report) depends on voluntary 
off"erings at the anniversary. That some of 
these gifts come in with splendid generosity, I 
need scarcely say. Clothing for the whole 
school arrives at Easter once a year, and I saw 
great bales of boots for the boys waiting to be 
unpacked in their school-room. Tailors and 
shoemakers come and take measurings before- 
hand, so that every body gets his own. To-day 
these artists having retired, carpenters and 
bricklayers are at work all about the place, and 
the great boys' school, which is larger still than 
the girls', is necessarily empty — except that a 
group of teachers and monitors are standing in 
one corner talking and whispering together. 
The head-master, with a black beard, comes 
down from a high desk in an inner room, and 
tells us about tlie place — about the cleverness 
of the children, and the scholarship lately found- 
ed ; how well many of the boys turn out in af- 
ter life, and for what good positions they are fit- 
ted by the education they are able to receive 
here ; — " though Jews," he said, " arc debarred 
by their religious requirements from two-thirds 
of the employments which Christians are able 
to fill. Masters can not afford to employ work- 
men who can only give their time from Monday 
to Friday afternoon. There are, therefore, only 
a very limited number of occupations open to ns. 
Some of our boys rise to be ministers, and many 
become teachers here, in which case Government 
allows them a certain portion of their salary." 

The head-mistress in the girls' school was not 
less kind and ready to answer our questions. 
During the winter mornings, hotbread-and-milk 
is given out to any girl who chooses to ask for 
it, but only about a hundred come forward, of 
the very hungriest and poorest. When we came 
away from Square a day before, we had be- 
gun to think that all poor Jews were well and 
warmly clad, and had time to curl their hair, 
and to look clean and prosperous and respect- 
able, but here, alas! comes the old story of want 
and sorrow and neglect. What are these brown, 
lean, wan little figures, in loose gowns falling 
from their shoulders — black eyes, fuzzy, un- 
kempt hair, strange bead necklaces round their 
throats, and ear-rings in their ears ? I fancied 
these must be the Poles and Russians, but when 
I spoke to one of them she smiled and answer- 
ed very nicely in perfectly good English, and 
told me she liked writing best of all, and show- 
ed me a copy very neat, even, and legible. 

Whole classes seemed busy sewing at lilac 
pinafores, which are, I suppose, a great nation- 
al institution ; others were ciphering and call- 
ing out the figures as the mistress chalked the 
sum upon a slate. Hebrew alphabets and sen- 
tences were hanging up upon the walls. All 
these little Hebrew maidens learn the language 
of their nation. 

In the infant-school, a very fat little pouting 
baby, with dark eyes, and a little hook-nose and 
curly locks, and a blue necklace and funny ear- 
rings in her little rosy ears, came forward, 
grasjiing one of the mistresses' fingers. 



390 



MISCELLANIES. 



"This is a good little girl," said that lady, 'sometimes coming for advice, sometimes for 
" who knows her alphabet in Hebrew and in small loans of money, which they always faith 
English." fully repay. She also showed us letters from 

And the little girl looks up very solemn, as some of the boys who have left and prospered 
children do, to whom every tiling is of vast im- \ in life. One from a youth who has lately been 
portance, and each little incident a great new ! elected alderman in some distant colony. She 
fact. The infant-schools do not make part of | took us into a class-room and gave a lesson to 
the Bell Lane Establishment, though tliey are ! some twenty little creatures, while, as it seemed 
connected with it, and the children, as they ! to me, all the 380 others were tapping at the 
grow up, and are infants no longer, draft oif door, and begging to be let in. It was an ob- 



1 



into the great free-school 

The infant-school is a light new building 
close by, with arcaded play-grounds, and plenty 
of light and air and freshness, tliough it stands 
in this dreary, grimy region. As we come into 
the school-rooms we find, jaled up on steps at 
cither end, great living heaps of little infants, 
swaying, kicking, shouting for their dinner, 
beating aimlessly about with little legs and 
arms. Little Jew babies are uncommonly like 
little Christians ; just as i'unny, as hungry, as 
helpless, and happy now that the bowls of food 
come steaming in. One, two, three, four, five 
little cook-boys, in white jackets and caps and 
aprons, appear in a line, with trays upon their 
heads, like the processions out of the Arabian 
Nights ; and as each cook-boy appears, the chil- 
dren cheer, and the potatoes steam hotter and 
hotter, and the mistresses begin to ladle them 
out. 

Kice and browned potatoes is the manna given 
twice a week to these hungry little Israelites. I 
rather wish for the soup and pudding certain 
small Christians are gobbling up just about this 
time in another corner of London ; but this is 
but a halfpenny- worth, while the other meal 
costs a penny. You may count by hundreds 
here instead of by tens ; and I don't think there 
would be so much shouting at the little cook- 
boys if these hungry little beaks were not eager 
for their food. I was introduced to one little 
boy here, who seemed to be very mucli looked 
up to by his companions because he had one 
long curl right along the top of his head. As 
we were busy talking to him, a number of little 
things sitting on the floor were busy stroking 
and feeling with little gentle fingers the soft 
edges of a coat one of us had on, and the silk 
dress of a lady who was present. 



ject and then a Scripture lesson, and given with 
the help of old familiar pictures. There was 
Abraham with his beard, and Isaac and the 
ram, hanging up against the wall ; there was 
Moses, and the Egyptians, and Joseph, and the 
sack and the brethren, somewhat out of drawing. 
All these old friends gave one quite a homely 
feeling, and seemed to hold out friendly hands 
to us strangers and Philistines, standing within 
the gates of the chosen people. 

Before we came away the mistress opened a 
door and showed us one of the prettiest and 
most touching sights I have ever seen. It was 
the arcaded playground full of happy, shouting, 
tumbling, scrambling little creatures : little tum- 
bled-down ones kicking and shouting on the 
ground, absurd toddling races going on, whole 
files of little things wandering up and down with 
their arms round one another's necks ; a happ}', 
friendly little multitude indeed : a sight good 
for sore eyes. 

And so I suppose people of all nations and 
religions love and tend their little ones, and 
watch and yearn over them. I have seen little 
Catholics cared for by kind nuns with wistful 
tenderness, as the young ones came clinging to 
their black veils and playing with their chap- 
lets ;— little high-church maidens giowing up 
rosy and happy amid crosses and mediaeval 
texts, and chants, and dinners of fish, and kind 
and melancholy ladies in close caps and loose- 
cut dresses ; — little low-church children smiling 
and dropping courtesies as they see the Rev. 
Mr. Faith-in-grace coming up the lane with 
tracts in his big pockets about pious negroes 
and broken vessels and devouring worms, and I 
dare say pennies and sugar-plums as well. 

"Who has not seen and noted these things, 
and blessed with a thankful, humble heart that 



The lady who takes chief charge of these 400 fiitherly Providence whicli has sent this pure 
babies told us how the mothers as well as the j and tender religion of little children to all 
children got assistance here in many ways, | creeds and to all tiie world? 



TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 



I CONFESS that I have very little sympathy 
for those unmarried ladies whose wail has of 
late been so constantly dinning in the ears of 
tlie public, and who, with every comfort and 
necessary of life provided, are supposed to be 
pining away in lonely gloom and helplessness. 
There are a score of books with which they 
doubtless while away their monotonous hours. 
Old maids, spinsters, the solitary, heart-broken 
women of England, have quite a little literature 
of their own, which can not certainly be cheer- 
ing to these forlorn spirits. It demands a de- 
gree of public sympathy for this particular class 
which would be insulting almost in individual 
cases, except, indeed, that there are no indi- 
vidual cases, and very few, who,- while desiring 
such commiseration for others, would not quite 
decline to present themselves as its deserving 
objects. To come forward, for instance, and 
say, "Oh alas! alas! what a sad, dull, solitary, 
useless, unhappy, unoccupied life is mine ! I 
can only see a tombstone at the end of my path, 
and willows and cypresses on either side, and 
flowers, all dead and faded, crumbling beneath 
my feet: and my only companions are memo- 
ries, and hair ornaments, and ghosts, prosy, 
stupid old ghosts, who go on saying the same 
things over and over and over again, and twad- 
dling about all tlie years that are gone away 
forever." This is no exaggeration. This is 
what the "thoughtful" spinster is supposed to 
say in her reflective moments. There are Sun- 
sets of spinster life. Moans of old maids. Words 
to the wasted, Lives for the lonely, without num- 
ber, all sympatliizing with these fancied griefs, 
urging the despondents to hide them away in 
their own hearts, to show no sigh, to gulp their 
bitter draught, to cheer, tend, console others in 
their need, altliough unspeakably gloomy them- 
selves. One book, I remember, after describing 
a life passed in abstract study, in nursing sfck 
people, in visiting unhappy ones, in relieving 
the needy, exclaims (or something very like it) : 
"But, ah I what at best is such a life as this, 
whose chief pleasures and consolations arc to 
be found in the cares and the sorrows of others? 
Married life, indeed, has its troubles," these 
single but impartial critics generally go on to 
state ; " but then there is companionsliip, sym- 
pathy, protection " — one knows the sentence by 
heart. "Not so is it with those whose lonely 
course wc should be glad to think that we had 
cheered by the few foregoing remarks, whose 
sad destiny has been pointed out by a not un- 
feeling hand. Who knows but that there may 



be compensation in a lot of which the blank 
monotony is at least untroubled by the anxie- 
ties and fears and hopes of the married ?" These 
are not the exact words, but very much the sub- 
stance, of many of the volumes, as any body who 
chooses may see. Where there really seems to 
be so much kindness and gentle-heartedncss, one 
is tiie more impatient of a certain melancholy, 
desponding spirit, which seems to prevail so 
often. 

"Perhaps I shall be told," says one lady, 
" that while professing to remove some preju- 
dices against it, I have, in reality, taken too 
gloomy a view of single life. ISIy observations 
will cause a good deal of laughter among happy 
spinsters, a good deal of animadversion among 
proud ones. Those wlio laugh most will be 
those who have most thoroughly tried the state 
I describe, and learned that, happy or unhappy, 
it is their portion for life, and that, as such, both 
wisdom and proprietj' of feeling require tliem to 
make the best of it. Tiiere are many such ; 

let them laugh with full contentment 

But I appeal from such well-fortified spirits to 
women of weaker mould, whose tenderness of 
heart is uncured by time What wom- 
an is there among such as these who does not 
mournfully acknowledge the loneliness of her 
life, and the frequent need of some one to lift 
her up when borne down by ijll the sorrows 
which oppress iier ?...." 

Here is a melancholy climax ! But what has 
the poor ladv, thus acknowledging her need, 
been about all these years? Who has forced 
her to live alone? Is there nobody to come 
forward and give her a lift? What possible 
reason can there be to prevent unmarried, any 
more than married, people from being happy (or 
unhappy), according to their circumstances — 
from enjoying other pleasures more lively than 
the griefs and suff'erings of their neighboi's? 
Are unmarried peoj^le shut out from all tiieatres, 
concerts, picture-galleries, parks, and gardens? 
May not they walk out on every day of the week ? 
Are they locked up all the summer time, and 
only let out when an east wind is blowing ? Are 
tliey forced to live in one particular quarter of 
the town ? Does Mudie refuse their subscrip- 
tions ? Are they prevented from taking in The 
Times, from going out to dinner, from match- 
making, visiting, gossiping, drinking tea, talk- 
ing, and playing the piano ? If a lady has had 
three husbands, could she do more ? May not 
spinsters, as well as bachelors, give their opinions 
on every subject, no matter how ignorant they 



392 



MISCELLANIES. 



may be; travel about anywhere, iti any cos- 
tume, however convenient; climb up craters, 
publish their experiences, tame horses, wear 
pork-pie hats, write articles in the Saturday 
Review ? They have gone out to battle in top- 
boots, danced on the tight-rope, taken up the 
Italian cause, and harangued the multitudes. 
They have gone to prison for distributing tracts ; 
they have ascended Mont Blanc, and come down 
again. They have been doctors, lawyers, cler- 
(lywomen, squires — as men have been milliners, 
dressmakers, ballet-dancers, ladies' hairdressers. 
They have worn waistcoats, shirt-collars, white 
neckcloths, wideawakes, parted their hair on one 
side — and, oddly enough, it is strong-minded 
women who take this curious method of an- 
nouncing that they are single : they have tried 
a hundred wild schemes, pranks, fancies ; they 
have made themselves ridiculous, respected, par- 
ticular, foolish, agreeable ; and small blame to 
them if they have played their part honestly, 
cheerfully, and sincerely. I know of no especial 
ordinance of nature to prevent men, or women 
either, from being ridiculous at times ; and we 
should hate people a great deal more than we 
do, if we might not laugh at them now and then. 
To go back to our spinsters, they have crossed 
the seas in shoals, been brave as men when their 
courage came to be tried ; they have formed 
land, kept accounts, opened shops, inherited for- 
tunes, played a part in the world, been presented 
at Court. What is it that is to render life to 
them only one long regret? Can not a single 
-woman know tenderest love, faithful aflFection, 
sincerest friendship ? And if Miss A. considers 
herself less fortunate than Mrs. B., who has an 
adoring husband always at home, and £10,000 
a year, she certainly does not envy poor Mrs. 
C, who has to fly to Sir Cresswell Cresswell to 
get rid of a " life companion," who beats her 
with his umbrelja, spends her money, and knocks 
lier down, instead of "lifting her up." 

With all this it is dismally true that single 
Avomen may have, and many of them have, a 
Teal trouble to complain of, and that when the 
barest necessaries are provided, life can only be 
to them one long privation from books, from 
amusement, from friendly intercourse, from the 
pleasure of giving, and from that social equality 
which is almost impossible without a certain 
amount of means; but then surely it is the 
want of money, and not of husbands, which 
brings them to this pass. Husbands, the sta- 
tistics tell us, it is impossible to provide ; money, 
however, is more easily obtained, and above all 
by those who already own a little store. Some- 
body says somewhere, that it is better a thou- 
sand times to earn a penny than to save one. 
I have just been learning how, in a few cases, 
this penny may be earned. Other means, ways, 
pennies, there are without number, and might 
be more and more. 

There are — to give the first instance which 
comes to me — Schools of Art all over the king- 
dom, where young men and young women are 
taught the same things by the same masters. 



It is a fact that the women generally take high- 
er places than the men in the examinations ; 
and when they leave, a person in authority has 
assured me that he did not know of one single 
instance where they had failed to make their 
way. They can earn generally from one hun- 
dred to two hundred a 3'ear. This would be 
by te^hing privately or in government schools, 
and by designing for manuflicturers. One girl 
I have heard of was engaged at two hundred a 
year to invent patterns for table-cloths all day 
long for some great Manchester firm. I think 
the melancholy books themselves nearly all most 
sensibly urge upon parents their duty either to 
make some provision for their daughters or to 
help them early in life to help themselves. For 
troubles come — sad times — and it is hard to look 
out for a livelihood with eyes blinded by tears. 

For mere sentimental griefs for persons whose 
comforts are assured, and whose chief trouble is 
that they do not like the life they lead, that they 
have aspirations and want sympathy, I think 
fewer books of consolation might suffice. One 
friendly little volume, which came out the other 
day, gives such wise and kindly hints to these 
suflferers, that I can not help mentioning it here.* 
Instead of vague longings after sympathy and 
protection, might they not themselves give such 
good things to others whose need is, perhaps, 
more urgent, and so find work and occupation 
too? 

And the best and the most grateful surely. 
No one can witness the first-fruits of such good 
labor without coming away, for a little time at 
least, more Christian and gentle-hearted. 

But it can only be by long patience and troii- 
ble that such work can be achieved. For to 
sympathize I suppose people must know sorrow 
in some measure, to help they must take pains, 
to give they must deny themselves, to know how 
to help others best they must learn themselves. 

And the knowledge of good and of evil, as it 
is taught to us by our lives, is a hard lesson in- 
deed ; learnt through failure, through trouble, 
through shame and humiliation, forgotten, per- 
haps neglected, broken off", taken up again and 
again. This lesson taught with such great pains 
has been sent to all mankind — not excepting old 
maids, as some people would almost have it ; 
such persons as would make life one long senti- 
mental penance, during which single women 
should be constantly occui)ied, dissecting, in- 
specting, regretting, examining themselves, liv- 
ing among useless little pricks and self-inflicted 
smarts, and wasting willfully, and turning away 
from the busy business of life, and still more 
from that gracious bounty of happiness and con- 
tent and gratitude which all the clouds of heav- 
en rain down upon us. 

When one sees what some good women can 
do with great hearts and small means, how 
bravely they can work for others and for them- 
selves, how many good chances there are for 
those who have patience to seek and courage to 



* My Life, by au Old Maid. 



TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 



393 



holJ, how much there is to be done — and I do 
not mean in worlvs of charity only, but in indus- 
try and application and determination;— how 
every woman in raising herself may carry along 
u score of others with her — when one sees all 
this, one is ashamed and angry to think of the 
melancholy, moping spirit which, out of sheer 
dullness and indolence, would complain of lost 
chances, go hankering after husbands, and more 
prosperous ways and means, and waste hours of 
daylight in gloomy sentiment and inertness. I 
do not mean that this is the spirit of the self-de- 
nying and self-concentrated persons of whom I 
have just been speaking, for honest and persist- 
ent efforts must make themselves respected in 
any form. I suppose I am addressing that vague 
but useful scapegoat whom all clergymen, ad- 
vertisers, advice-givers, speech-makers, and arti- 
cle-writers attack, and who misbeliaves in every 
convenient manner in order to give the wrath- 
pots of eloquence an opportunity of pouring out. 

Statistics are very much the fashion nowadays, 
and we can not take up a newspaper or a pam- 
phlet without seeing in round numbers that so 
many people will do so and so in the course of the 
year ; so many commit murder, so many be taken 
np for drunkenness, so many subscribe to the 
London Journal, so many die, so many marry, 
so many quarrel after, so many remain single to 
the end of their lives, of whom so many will be 
old maids in the course of time. This last num- 
ber is such an alarming one, that I am afraid to 
write it down ; but it is natural to suppose that 
out of these latter thousands a certain number 
must be in want of some place where they can 
have lunch or tea more quietly, and cheaply and 
comfortably served than at a pastry-cook's shop. 
Good tea and bread and butter for sixpence, and 
dinner off a joint, with potatoes, for ninepence, 
must, I should think, be a boon to a good many 
who are perhaps out and about all day, earning 
their sixpences and ninepences. By subscribing, 
■we are told, to the Ladies' Reading-Room, No. 19 
Langham Place, tliey may not only partake of 
all these and other delicacies, and join in intel- 
lectual conversation, but go np stairs and read 
The Times, and the Englishwoman's Journal, and 
the Cornhill Magazine, etc., etc., and write their 
letters on neatly stamped paper, when the meal 
is over. 

The governesses and hard-working ladies, 
. however, do not seem to frequent this strong- 
minded little refreshment-room as much as 
might have been expected; a few country ladies, 
coming up to town to sliop and to see governess- 
es, seem to patronize it more, as w.ell as some 
of the members of a society which has come to 
live in the same house. Their labors over, they 
may, if they like, indulge in tea at five o'clock 
in the quiet little coffee-room. There are tables, 
neatly spread, awaiting them, a waitress ready 
to attend to their wants, windows looking out 
upon a broad and cheerful street, and on the 
wall a list of prices, all of the most moderate 
dimensions. 

It is now about two vears since this societv 



was started. It is called the " Society for 
Promoting the Employment of Women," and 
Lord Shaftesbury, strange to say, is the presi- 
dent. 

" Miss Boucherett and a few ladies," says the 
report, "feeling deeply the helpless and neces- 
sitous condition of the great number of women 
obliged to resort to non-domestic industry as a 
means of subsistence, consulted together as to 
the best way in which tliey might bring social 

position and influence to their aid They 

resolved on the formation of a new society, 
which should have for its object the opening of 
new employments to women, and their more ex- 
tensive admission into those branches of employ- 
ment already open to them." The report goes 
on to describe briefly enough some of the diffi- 
culties which at once occurred to them. Among 
others, where they should begin their experi- 
ment. " For highly educated women, we could 
for a time do nothing ; women of no education 
could do nothing for us. That is to say, we 
could open no new channels for the labor of the 
former, and our experiments would have failed, 
owing to the inefficiency of the latter. But we 
felt convinced that in whatever direction we 
made an opening, the pressure upon all ranks 
of working-women would be lessened." 

This well-intentioned society has only been 
in existence for a little time ; it lives, as I have 
said, at 19 Langham Place. It is busy appren- 
ticing girls to hair-dressing, printing, law-copy- 
ing, dial-painting. It is making inquiries in 
otiier directions, but it finds many obstacles in 
its way. Their means are small, apprenticeship 
is expensive, very few of the girls who come to 
them can give the time to learn a new trade. 
They almost all want immediate work and pay- 
ment, and something to do which needs no learn- 
ing nor apprenticeship. Can one wonder how 
it is that women earn so little and starve so 
much? I have seen a dismal list belonging to 
the secretary of the society, which tells of certain 
troubles in a very brief and business-like way. 
Here is : — 

" Miss A., aged 30, daughter of a West In- 
dian merchant, reduced to poverty by his failure : 
highly educated, but not trained to any thing. 
Just out of hospital. Wants situation as nurse- 
maid, without salary. 

" Miss B., aged 30. Father speculated, and 
ruined the family, which is now dependent on 
her. He is now old, and she has a sister dying. 

" Miss C, aged 50. Willing to do any thing. 

"Miss D., aged 30. Obliged by adverse cir- 
cumstances to seek employment: unsuited for 
teaching. * 

"Mrs. E., widow, with four daughters, aged 
from 14 to 23. Not trained to any thing, im- 
perfectly educated, lost large property by a law- 
suit. 

"Mrs. F., husband in America, appears to 
have deserted her. Wants immediate employ- 
ment. 

"Mrs. G., aged .55; husband, a clergyman's 
son, ill and helpless. Would do any thing. Go 



394 



MISCELLANIES. 



out as cliarwoman. Orderly and methodical 
in her habits. Applied at St. Mary's Hospital, 
refused as being too old. 

"MissH., aged 30, clergyman's daughter, 
governess seven years. Dislikes teaching, is 
suffering in consequence of overwork." 

One has no training, no resources ; another 
poor thing says she is neither well educated nor 
clever at any thing ; she had a little money of 
her own, but lent it to her brother, and lost it. 

"Miss I., energetic, willing to do any thing. 

"J., middle-aged woman, not trained to any 
thing in particular ; tried to live by needlework, 
and failed." 

Here we are only at J, and there are yet al- 
phabets and alphabets of poor souls all ready to 
tell the same story, more or less, whom this 
friendly society is endeavoring to help. 

It has already opened two little establish- 
ments, which are making their way in the world 
with every chance of prosperity and success. 
One is the law-copying oiKce in Portugal Street, 
and the other the printing-press in Great Coram 
Street, which is better known, and where twice 
as many hands are employed. 

To this ]n-inting-house in Great Coram Street 
we went, my friend A. and I ; A. telling me, as 
we drove along, of all the thouglit and pains and 
money the house had cost. The money it is 
already giving back ; the kind thought and 
trouble will be paid in a different coin. 

One of the best hands in the oflfice, A. said, is 
a poor printer's daughter from Ireland, who 
learnt the business there at her father's press. 
After his death, she fell into great poverty and 
trouble, and could find no work nor way of liv- 
ing, when one day she happened to pick up an 
old torn newspaper, in which she read some lit- 
tle account of the Victoria Press. She set off 
immediately, begged her way all the way to 
London, and arrived one day covered with grime 
and rags, to ask Miss Faithfull to take her in. 
There was another printress whom I saw dili- 
gently at work, a little deaf and dumb girl, who 
had been trained in the office. I scarcely 
know if I may say so here, but I know that the 
printers in this office are trained to better things 
still than printing. 

The workwomen are paid by the piece at the 
same rate as men are paid. The money is well- 
earned money, for the work is hard ; but not so 
hard — and, I tiiink, some of these very women 
could tell us so — as working button-holes four- 
teen hours a day at five farthings an hour, and 
selling life and spirit, and flesh and blood, in 
order not to die. Here are eighteen and twen- 
ty shillings to be made a week between nine and 
six o'clock, except, of course, when some sudden 
press of business obliges them to work on late 
into the night. . 

On the ground floor there is an office, a press- 
room, a store-room ; down below, a dining-room, 
where the women cook their dinners if they like, 
and rest for an hour in the middle of the day. 
On the first floor are work-rooms. The front 
one is filled up with wooden desks like jjcws. 



running from the windows, and each holding 
three or four young women. At right angles 
with the pews run tables, loaded with iron frames 
and black sheets of type, which are being manip- 
ulated by two or three men in dirty-white pa- 
lmer caps. There are also men to print off, and 
do all theheavy work, which no woman's strength 
would be equal to. 

It is a very busy, silent colony ; a table of 
rules is hanging up on the wall, and I see NO 
TALKING ALLOWED printed up in fiery let- 
ters. All the tongues are silent, but the hands 
go waving, crossing, recrossing. What enchant- 
resses, I wonder, weaving mystic signs in the 
air, ever worked to such good purpose ! Back- 
ward, forward, up and down, there goes a word 
for a thousand people to read ; hi, presto ! and 
the Guinea Bassinet is announced in letters 
of iron. 

Besides all the enchantresses, there is a little 
printer's devil, who haunts the place, and seems 
to have a very pleasant time there, and to be 
made a great deal of by all the womankind. 
He has a pair of very rosy cheeks ; he wears a 
very smart little cap, with "Victoria Press" 
embroidered upon it, and he goes and waits in 
the halls, and sends up for the ladies' manuscript, 
just like any other printer's devil one has ever 
heard of. 

"The Society for the Employment of Wom- 
en apprenticed five girls to me," says Miss Faith- 
full, describing their start, "at premiums of 
£10 each. Others were apprenticed by rela- 
tions and friends, and we soon found ourselves 

in the thick of the struggle When you 

remember that there was not one skilled com- 
positor in the office, you will readily understand 
the nature of the difficulties we had to encoun- 
ter. Work came in immediately from tlie earli- 
est day. In April we commenced our first 
book." 

Every body, I think, must wish this gallant 
little venture good speed and all tiie success it 
deserves. Here is one more extract about the 
way in which the printers themselves look at 
it:— 

" The introduction of women into the trade 
has been contemplated by many jjrinters. In- 
telligent workmen do not view this movement 
with distrust. They feel very strongly that 
woman's cause is man's, and they anxiously 
look for some opening for the employment of ■ 
those otherwise solely dependent upon them." 
And I feel bound to add that I have seen ex- 
actly a contrary statement in another little 
pamphlet, written by another member of the so- 
ciety. 

The other place to which I went was a law 
stationer's in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn, 
where are a series of offices and shops in which 
lawyers' clerks, I believe, go and buy all those 
red tapes, blue bags, foolscap papers, plain or 
over-written, in stiff, upright, legible handwrit- 
ing — all of which seem to play such an impor- 
tant part in the legislature of the country. 
Blue paper, white paper, of a dozen tints, 



TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 



305 



luled, unruled, abbreviations, erasures, ordered, 
permitted, forbidden — all these things are de- 
creed by certain laws, which are as much the 
laws of the land as 3 Vict, or 18 Geo. III., 
which one reads about in the newspapers. All 
this was good-naturedly explained to us by the 
manager of this copying-office, into which we 
were invited to enter by an elaborate hand 
hanging up on the wall and pointing with a pen 
which was ornamented by many beautiful flour- 
ishes. I was rather disappointed to find the 
place perfectly light and clean, without any of 
the conventional dust and spiders'-webs about. 
The manager sitting in a comfortable little 
room, the clerks busy at their desks in another 
— very busy, scarcely looking up as we go in, 
and working away sedulously with steel pens. 
I am told that the very first thing they learn 
when they come in is to stick their pens behind 
their ears. 

There were about ten of them, I think. The 
manager told us that they were paid, like the 
printers, by the piece, and could earn from fif- 
teen to twenty-four shillings a week ; receiving 
three halfpence a folio, or twopence a folio, ac- 
cording to the difficulty of the work. They go 
on from ten till about six. This business, how- 
ever, can not be counted on with any certainty ; 
sometimes there is a press of work which must 
be done, and then the poor clerks sit up nearly 
all night, scratching with wearied pens, and ar- 
rive iu the morning with blear eyes and pale 
faces, and fit for very little. Then, again, there 
is comparatively nothing going on ; and they 
sit waiting in the office, working and embroider- 
ing, to pass tlie time. The idea of clerks em- 
broidering in their office, and of young women 
with pens behind their ears bending over title- 
deeds and parchments, seemed rather an in- 
congruous one ; but young women must live 
somehow, and earn their daily bread ; and a 
great many of these had tried and failed very 
often, before they drifted into Miss Rye's little 
office. 

It was opened some ten months ago, she told 
us, by the society, and was transferred to her in 
November, and already begins to pay its own 
expenses. It was veiy up-hill work at first. 
The copyists were new to their work ; the so- 
licitors chary of reading it. Many of their 
clerks, too, seemed averse to the poor ladies. 
Others, however, were very kind ; and one, in 
particular, came to see Miss Rye of his own 
accord, to tell her of some mistakes which had 
been made, and gave her many useful hints at 
the same time. Without such help, she said, 
they never could have got on at all. Now the 
drudgery is overcome ; the little office is flour- 
ishing ; the steel pens find plenty of work to 
do. 

One of the copyists is a widow, and supports 
two children ; another is a Quaker lady, who 
writes the most beautiful hand imaginable. 
Applicants come every day to be taken in, and 
Miss Rye says that if they seem at all promis- 
ing she is only too glad to engage tliera ; but 



many and many of them lose courage, cry off at 
the last moment, find the occupation' too severe, 
the distance too great, would like to come some- 
times of an afternoon, and so go off to begin 
their search anew after that slender livelihood 
that seems so hard to win — so hard in son)e 
cases, that it is death as well as life that poor 
creatures are earning, as tliey toil on day by 
day, almost contented, almost cheerful. 

In these two places I have seen in what way 
ladies have tried to help — not ladies, but wom- 
en of a higher class than needlewomen and 
shopwomen and servants. Ladies — those un- 
lucky individuals whose feelings have been 
trained up to that sensitive pitch which seems 
the result of education and cultivation, and 
which makes the performance of tlie common 
offices of life a pain and a penalty to them — 
might perhaps at a pinch find a livelihood in 
either of these offices, or add enough to their 
stoi-e to enable them at least to live up to their 
cultivated feelings. At any rate, it must be 
less annoying and degrading to be occupied with 
work, however humble, than to contemplate nar- 
rower and narrower stintings and economies 
every day — economies which are incompatible 
with the veiy existence of cultivation and re- 
finement. Scarcely any work that is honest 
and productive can be degrading. If a lady 
could earn£GO a year as a cook, it seems to me 
more dignified to cook than to starve on a pit- 
tance of £30 or £20, as so many must do. 

There are now two other places I want to 
speak of, which concern a class of women a lit- 
tle lower in the social grade : I mean shopwom- 
en and needlewomen. The shopwomen we have 
all of us seen a hundred times, dressed in black 
silk and vast crinolines, and gliding in and out 
of the "Mantle and Millinery Department " at 
Messrs. Swangroves and Snellonbigs. Three 
shopwomen are advertised for in some great es- 
tablishment, perhaps, and fifty or sixty go and 
apply for the places ; out of these, tliree of the 
best-looking are picked out — so these poor things 
have told a certain good friend they have. They 
are well paid for the time ; they are put into 
black silks, and into their "departments." 
They earn, perhaps, 25s. or 30s. a week, or even 
more ; their business is to be well-dressed and 
good-looking, and to persuade or frighten peo- 
ple into buying. They have hard work ; they 
miist live well and comfortably. They are 
country girls, perhaps ; they have no friends in 
London, nobody to give them a word of advice, 
except indeed plenty of bad and foolish advice. 
The houses at which they board and lodge ask 
them exorbitant prices — a guinea a week, I be- 
lieve, is the general charge — and they live there 
apart in lonely little rooms, away from home, 
from all good influence, good teaching, good 
sympathy. This goes on for three or four busy 
months, and then suddenly it all comes to an 
end. Every body goes away ; the mad dance 
breaks off in the middle, all the busy figures 
coming and going disappear somehow ; nobody 
wants new dresses ; breakfasts, dinners, teas arc 



396 



MISCELLANIES. 



all over, or at least partaken of at home in less 
brilliant costume. The ladies' season is over, 
and they all go away to the country quite wea- 
ried out, and the poor milliners' season has 
come to an end too, and where are they to turn 
to? They have not been able to save any mon- 
ey, living at a guinea a week — how was that 
possible ? They can only make and sell 
flounces, they know no other trade. People 
don't want gauzes and flounces in October and 
November, and so the dressmakers and the great 
shops don't want them any longer, and they tell 
them so. One day last year thirty young wom- 
en were turned out into the street from one great 
house, without friends or means of any kind, or 
liope of work, and literally not knowing where 
to turn to. 

I spoke just now of a certain good friend they 
have, from whom I heard all this. Because of 
this, and for other reasons, this friend and a few 
other people have tried to help these young wom- 
en by opening a house in Welbeck Street, where 
they may lodge at a much cheaper rate than 
in those other places spoken of, and where they 
will be safe and well cared for as long as they 
remain. There is a sort of kindness and good- 
ness and homeliness and comfort about the place, 
which a loving spirit seems to give somehow to 
four walls. It is a spacious old house, of which 
the upper rooms are divided and subdivided into 
little wooden bed-rooms ; there are little high- 
church pictures, and cleanliness and airiness 
everywhere. It is only a lodging-house. It 
does not pretend to be a charity. Young wom- 
en are free to go and come as they like. They 
dine together down below, and those ladies who 
live in the house dine and breakfast at the same 
time. "We know them all," said their good 
friend, in speaking of them, "and there is not 
one among them we do not care for and take 
deep interest in." These ladies live with them 
in order to be their friends really. They look 
after them when they are gone. I don't think 
any girl living in such a home as this, and with 
such kind hands stretched out to help her, need 
ever be in lonely grief or trouble, however un- 
protected and solitary she may find herself here 
in London town. 

There is a little chapel attached to the house, 
which was opened and dedicated by the Bishop 
of London some short time ago. Here are 
prayers morning and evening, to which they 
may come or not, as they like ; for most of the 
girls in the house are dissenters, and have been 
bred up in other forms. One can not help wish- 
ing this place were better known, and that 
young women coming up to town, instead of 
getting into debt and difiicuUies elsewhere, 
would come oflf here straightway to the shelter 
of this kindly i-oof. 

At present there are many vacancies : and 
the first starting off is found difficult. " It has 
been so very expensive fitting up this house," 
writes the kind lady who let us in, to a friend, 
"and the rent is so high. We want to take a 
room for others, for classes outside ; also, we 



are in need of books of a good tendency, as well 
as entertaining. Tlicse young people -will not 
read directly religious books ; and the novels 
they get hold of are generally of the worst kind, 

and to them specially dangerous We 

should never get on at all if the ladies did not 
pay high (for their board), as well as give their 
work." These ladies, who pay high for their nar- 
row little sleeping-rooms in order to live and 
dine and breakfast with all those young mil- 
liners, are willing to receive subscriptions if 
any people care to send small sums to help them 
on in their good work. The house is No. 47 
A, Welbeck Street, and here is a list of the 
prices : — 

Lodgings. 

Second-floor bedrooms, with all meals on Sunday. . 4.s. Gd. 

Tliird-floor bedrooms, with all meals on Sunday. . 3 C 

Meals, dy the AVeek. 

Breakfasts, with tea or coffee, bread and butter 2 

Dinners, without beer 2 

Teas 1 G 

Suppers, bread and cheese, or butter, and coffee. . . 1 

The Needlewomen's Home is in Lamb's Con- 
duit Street. Here, in big front rooms, furnish- 
ed with long, narrow benches and tables, are 
women seated in rows, wan, haggard, untidy, 
pale with watching, bent with sewing, stupefied 
by a long, sad life of labor. It was tea-time as 
we got there, and from a door on the landing 
issued a file of gray women, with soiled clotlics 
and weary, pinched fiaces. They passed me, 
and went down, one by one, to the kitchens be- 
low — dull, old, for the most part careless — tired 
out, so it seemed to me. A lady who had come 
to see tlie house made some little joke to one 
disheveled old woman decked out with some 
black and ghastly fineiy. The old creature 
brightened up in an instant, and went down 
stairs laughing, and one or two other poor 
ghosts laughed a little too. This was no hard- 
task shop in which we were. We had not come 
to be made melancholy, but to see how much 
help, comfort, assistance was to be found in tliis 
gloomy old house of call for needlewomen ; 
only, somehow, what these poor women prized 
so greatly seemed to us so scant a measure — 
their privileges such sad ones, so it seemed to 
us — that I am afraid we came away thinking 
more of their ill than of their good fortune. 

Only a few workers were left in the room out 
of which the dismal little procession had filed. 
One deformed woman I saw stitching still, but 
stopping every now and then to rub her eyes. 
Another old woman was at work upon a shirt- 
front. I asked her how much she earned in a 
day, but she would not answer — said she didn't 
know. I asked her if she earned less before she 
came ; but she still shook her head, and said she 
could not tell me, and folded up her shirt and 
went away. Another brisk old lady was much 
more communicative ; she took off her specta- 
cles, put down some fine stitching, and quite 
good-naturedly told us any thing we wanted to 
know. 

"Bless you," says she, " I have not been used 
to tliis all my life ; I've had a house and serv- 



TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 



397 



ants of my own in my time. So has Mrs. Giin- 
ter. Oh, she is gone to her tea ; but she sits 
the third from the window there. I earn a good 
bit ; and so I did before I came here, but I Avork- 
ed harder." 

"At what time used you to begin?" asked 
my friend. 

" At si.\, mum," says the old lady, quite 
cheerful. "By going on regular from six in 
the morning till eleven at night, I could earn 
about two shillings; and so I can here." 

" But you know you are one of our very best 
hands, Mrs. ," says the matron. 

Mrs. • looks quite pleased, and assents. 

" Tliis is very comfortable," she goes on. 
" We only work from nine to eight ; we get plen- 
ty of light and fire, and a little company to cheer 
one up a bit." 

" Does not the fine working make your eyes 
ache?" asks the lady. 

"Dear me, no," cries Mrs. . "Why, 

that old lady there in the corner, she is past sev- 
enty, and never wore spectacles. I should just 
like you to see some of her stitching." 

"Mrs. Gunter, would you kindly let us see 
your work ?" asks the good-natured matron. 

" I'm not Mrs. Gunter," says the old woman, 
very tartly, and looks up suddenly, with a pair 
of bright brown twinkling eyes. Just to think 
of their twinkling so brightly through seventy 
toilsome years ! 

" I'm sure I beg your pardon," said the ma- 
tron, kindly ; and then turning to us, adds, 
" This good lady not only keeps lierself by her 
work, but supports a bed-ridden sister. Is it not 
so, ma'am ?" • 

"Well, I do, perhaps, partly," said the old 
woman, " She can't help herself much, poor 
thing ! she is crippled in the hands ; some of 
her fingers are drawed together like." The fixct 
being that the good, bright-eyed old creature 
did support her sister, but did not care to get 
the credit of it. 

Our first acquaintance had gone to tea by this 
time, and now the friendly matron began to tell 
us about the place. It was opened by Miss Bar- 
lee some time ago ; I can not quite remember 
how many hundred needle-women have worked 
there since. There were about fifty in the house 
the day we went ; some of them up stairs sew- 
ing at government shirts and jackets, for which 
Miss Barlee has obtained a contract ; others busy 
at lady's work, and the sliirt-makers down be- 
low. By coming to this house, the women get 
constant and certain employmeht, thread, nee- 
dles, light, firing, and tea, for which they pay a 
penny in the shilling; bread and sugar they 
have to find themselves. They earn from one 
shilling to two shillings for their ten or eleven 
hours, and I need not count up the advantages 
of light, spacious work-rooms, and company, in- 
stead of cold, darkness, and solitude. My friend 
was telling me of a girl who was found working 
in a garret by the light of a piece of twisted pa- 
per, as she had no money to buy a candle ; and 
of another who came to this place to beg for 



work, and when it was given to her, asked if she 
might be allowed a penny in advance to buy 
some bread, as she was so weak for want of food 
that she could not hold her needle. The ladies 
here do not only give work and money, they go 
to the women at their own homes ; and if they 
miss them from the house, look after them, and 
give them help if they want it. They also dis- 
tribute coal-tickets and soup-tickets in the win- 
ter and at Christmas. Tiiis year a great din- 
ner was given, with speeches, and plum-pudding 
and roast-beef, to which scores of guests sat down 
— guests to whom at last a holiday had come in 
all the years. 

The matron, whom w^e made friends with, who 
is a most kind and cheerful person, told us, also, 
how much better paid the women are here than 
in shops, where all the work goes through the 
hands of contractors. They would never have 
time, she said, to give out one half-dozen hand- 
kerchiefs here, another there, or pillow-cases, or 
whatever it may be ; to look after so many stray 
women, and make sure that none of their goods 
are pawned, or stolen, or made away with. That 
is why they engage contractors who do all this, 
and give good security. 

" And these arc the wretches who grind and 
screw the poor creatures," cries sentimental in- 
dignaJMn. 

"■miy, the fact is, /was a contractor," says • 
the kind matron. " Of course I had to live. I 
was very, very sorry for the poor things. I 
hired a room for them, wliere I had twenty or 
thirty at work; I helped tliem as much as I 
could ; but it made my heart ache often. At 
last one of my workers came to me and told me 
of this place. She had heard of it from a mis- 
sionary, and so, finally, I came to be matron, 
and look after them all." 

She also told us that wliere they earn ten or 
twelve shillings here, they could only get eight 
or nine elsewhere, out of which they have to find 
their tliread. "They are sad rovers, though," 
she added ; " they think they have heard of 
something better, and off tliey go." Perhaps it 
is a shilling a day making up net cuffs for some 
shop in Oxford Street ; but the net is worked 
up in a week, the shop does not want them any 
more, and they are glad enougli to come back to 
the quiet old house again. 

It seems the most practical, CtiQ most useful 
and friendly of places, a thoroughly work-a-day 
usable tool for helping tiie greatest number most 
effectually, and at the 'least cost. If funds are 
forthcoming. Miss Barlee is prepared to establish 
twelve branches in different parts of London. 
Tiiis house is at No. 26 Lamb's Conduit Street. 
Persons wanting work done, and wanting to help 
the workers, have only got to send it here; and 
I do not know why these persons should not be 
shopkeepers as well as buyers, and why the one 
and the other should not be sorry for, and eager 
to help, women seeking so wearily their scanty 
portion of the bread of life. 

They seek it wearily, but it is to be found. 
By roadsides, in arid places, springing up among 



MISCELLANIES. 



the thorns and stones. Patient eyes can see it, 
lionest hands may gather ; good measure, now 
and then pressed down and overflowing. Only 
poor women's hands are bruised by the stones 
sometimes, and torn by tlie thorns. 

I seem to have been wandering all about Lon- 
don, in and out by Coram Street, Lamb's Con- 
duit Street, Lincoln's Inn, and to fiave drifted 
away ever so far from the spinsters in whose 
company I began my paper. But is it so ? I 
think it is they who have been chiefly at work, 



and taking us along with them all this time ; I 
think it is mostly to their kindly sympathy and 
honest endeavors that these places owe their ex- 
istence — these, only a few among a hundred 
which are springing up in every direction : — 
springing up, helpful, forbearing, kindly of deed, 
of word, gentle of ministration, in the midst 
of a roaring, troublous city. Somehow grief 
and shame and pain seem to bring down at 
times consolation, pity, love, as a sort of conse- 
quence. 



THE END OF A LONG DAY'S WORK. 



To many of those who but a few weeks ago 
were sitting in the shady garden at the back of 
Mr. Senior's house at Kensington, it must have 
seemed as if his last words of welcome were al- 
most sounding yet, his kindly greeting still 
their own, when they heard that their old 
friend was gone from amongst them. 

Mr. Senior had been ill for some little time, 
and was scarcely able to go beyond his garden ; 
but every day, besides the members of ^v> own 
famil}', some of his friends and acquaimances 
would come and see him, and sit with him talk- 
ing over the topics of the day. The last time 
the writer saw him, Mr. Senior was as usual sit- 
ting out on his lawn, shaded from the sunshine 
by the trees M'hich he had himself planted when 
he laid out the garden and built the house in 
which he was to live for so many years. A rug 
was wrapped around his knees, a table with pa- 
pers stood beside him, and one or two of his 
friends were coming across the grass. It was 
not much to see, and yet we remember the 
pleasant impression which came to us as we 
witnessed the little scene. Sunshine — early 
summer green — the distant hum of sounds — 
the gathering of friends — the host seated in his 
chair, and welcoming each of the new-comers 
with kind courtesy. As they enter, it is to 
leave the haste and the noise and the dusty 
glare of the world without, and to come into a 
green and tranquil garden, where a man, after 
long years of' labor, is peacefully resting and 
enjoying his last spring days. 

Nassau William Senior was born at Comp- 
ton, near Uffingham, in Berkshire, in IT'JO. 
He was the eldest son of the Rev. John Senior, 
a man of great ability, who chose to be his son's 
sole instructor for some yeai's before he sent 
him to Eton and to Oxford. At Eton, Mr. 
Senior has said he learned nothing, though he 
dearly loved the place, and liked to speak of it 
in after days ; but from his father he learned a 
very great deal. Nevertheless he was plucked 
at Oxford, when he went up for an ordinary de- 
gree. The examiners asked liim some question 
out of the catechism, to which he re]died by giv- 
ing the sense, but not the exact words of the an- 



swer. When this was remarked upon, he said 
that if he had been asked some years before, 
when he was a child in the nursery, he might 
have been able to satisfy them. This excuse 
did not mend matters, and the young man was 
sent back. But he was not used to fail in what 
he undertook, and determined that he would 
take honors. His sister, nearly twenty years 
younger than himself, writes (speaking of these 
bygone days): "Almost the first thing I can 
remember of my brother is his reading hard in 
a summer-house at the end of my grandmoth- 
er's garden. To the best of ray early recollec- 
tion, he seems to have lived a long time in that 
summer-house surrounded by books." 

Mr. Senior's reading in the summer-house 
was to tome good end, for he went up to Oxford 
a second time, and took a first class in classics. 
He was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College 
in 1811, and in 1818 was called to the bar. 
Long before this, when he wa? quite a 3'oung 
man, he had commenced journal-keeping. He 
used to say that he found it cleared his brain to 
hammer out his thoughts on other people. 

The letter already quoted goes on to say that, 
in all his boyish and youthful years, he was a 
great lover of poetry; wrote addresses to the 
nymphs of Tenby — Latin verses, etc. These 
old MSS. are in existence still, and must Imve 
been treasured up by his mother and by an eld- 
er sister, to whom he was tenderly devoted, and 
who died of consumption at five-and-twenty. 
The same letter speaks of his coming down to 
see her, and drawing her about the garden in a 
chair. "I well remember," the writer says, 
"the joy thatliis coming home used to cause, 
and the tone in which he was always spoken of, 
as ever dearly loved and tlioroughly trusted." 

It seems likely enough that the early death 
of his beloved sister, and perhaps other causes 
for sorrow at the same time, may have been the 
secret springs of Mr. Senior's activity in the 
service of his country. 

It would be curious to trace how much of 
public good is owing to the individual troubles 
and pangs of this man or the other ; what bat- 
tles and victories are won, desert lands reclaim- 



THE END OF A LONG DAY'S WORK. 



399 



ed and cultivated, hungry folks fed, and weary 
folks comforted ; what noble thoughts are given 
utterance to in noble words ; .what good work 
of every sort is achieved by tlie smarting pang 
of regret, the sickness of disappointment, the 
aching certainty of enduring sorrow. To give 
and to take appears to be the inevitable law, 
and it would almost seem as if those who had 
suffered most were indeed those who had given 
most to us in our sore human craving for help 
and for sympathy. 

"When I was about five-and-twenty," Mr. 
Senior said, one day — perhaps nearly half a 
century later — to his daughter, "I determined 
that I would reform the condition of the poor in 
England." 

In his father's parish, for many years, Mr. 
Senior had been accustomed to hear a great 
deal and to see a great deal of the suffering of 
poor people in their own homes, and he had 
constantly occupied himself with the means of 
effectually relieving some of the misery which 
he witnessed daily. Now, after a lifetime al- 
most, he might well look back and remember 
iiis early aspirations, for the half-century which 
had elapsed was full of hard work accomplished, 
of determinations loyally carried out. Each man 
travels his own way ; and it seems sometimes 
strange that so much sympathy should exist for 
those kindly philanthropists who labor with 
their hands, and actu'ally distribute the loaves 
to the half-dozen hungry mouths, while there is 
so very little shown for others who, witiiout 
making any particular pretension to charity, 
work witli their heads as well as their hearts, in 
the cause of the needy, and distribute their 
loaves to the unknown multitudes, who could 
not even tell the names of their benefactors. 

A very able article in the Economist gives an 
excellent resume of Mr. Senior's political econo- 
my. In the Examiner (as well as in quotations 
given from another paper for June 11th, 18G4), 
we read of a professorship of Political Economy 
at Oxford in 1825, and again in 1847; of a 
Poor-Law Commission of Inquiry into the dis- 
tribution of the poor-rates ; of the abolition of 
the law of parochial settlement; of the inquiry 
into the relief of hand-loom weavers throughout 
the country ; and of his latest and most con- 
spicuous service in improving the elementary 
education of the children of the working-class- 
es. And so, while the planes and mulberry- 
trees which he had planted were growing up 
tall and shady, the other seed which Mr. Se- 
nior had sown was fiillen in good ground, and 
hud been taking root, and spreading in all its 
branches, and long after this generation has 
]iassed away, will be still growing and fructify- 
ing, year by year. 

Mr. Senior was seventy-three years of age 
wlien he died. Although long ago he had giv- 
en up public life, yet his interest in the events 
of the time remained keen and lively to the 
very last. His power of application had always 
been remarkable. Only a few months ago, he 
was to be seen at his desk apparently qi;ite un- 



disturbed, while his family were assembling in 
the room, and the servants were preparing the 
table for breakfast ; — he himself had been up 
and at his writing for several hours. His de- 
sire for information and power of work never 
left him. He sometimes has said that " he 
should never live long enough to have read all 
the books he should like to read." His jour- 
nals fdl many volumes, the interest and value 
of which will only increase as time goes on. 
Of his important works on political economy and 
of his political career another pen will be bet- 
ter able to write : these few words are meant to 
concern "the man rather than his works," the 
kindly friend, the hospitable host of many a 
year. 

Among his chief friends were Archbishop 
Whately, who had been his tutor at Oxford ; 
Sydney Smith, Lord Lansdowne, Sir James 
Stephen, M. de Tocqueville, Dr. Copleston, the 
late Bishop of Llandaff, Sir George Cornewall 
Lewis. Many an honored name might be add- 
ed to the list of those whom Mr. Senior has wel- 
comed under his roof. He has rejoined his old 
friends ; and now, as one looks back, it seems 
as if the guests of his lifetime would almost 
comprise the history of the last half-century. 
Here and in France he has held relations with 
almost every body of name and of mark. 

In Mr. Thackeray's paper, entitled DeJuven- 
tute, there is mention made of one young mem- 
ber of Mr. Senior's family, under the name of 
Walter Juvenis, who goes twice in one day to 
the exhibition at the Horse Riders' Circus, and 
comes away " with eyes looking longingly to- 
wards the ring as we retreated out of the booth. 
We were scarcely clear of the place, when we 
heard God save the King played by the eques- 
trian band, the signal that all was over. Our 
companion entertained us with scraps of dia- 
logue on our way home — precious crumbs of wit 
which he had brought away from that feast. 
He laughed over them again as we walked 
home under the stars." .... 

Some of this boyish enjoyment and cheerful- 
ness Mr. Senior retained all his life. His dis- 
position was singularly bright and placid ; there 
was constant kindness, great sweetness of tem- 
per, and although great reserve and little ex- 
pression of feeling, there was a deep and un- 
failing affection and fidelity toward tliose whom 
he loved best. Painful subjects, unavoidable 
misfortunes, he would never allow to be dwelt 
u]3on. He has often said, even quite latelj-, 
that he would gladly live a hundred years long- 
er, and that life was to him a constant happi- 
ness and interest and occupation. 

Till many years over thy head return : 
So mayest thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop 
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease 
Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature. 
Paradise Lost, book xi. 

Does the task which is set to each one of us 
last as long as life itself? Do some only live 
to complete it ? Do others outlive their lives ? 
At times we all try to imagine the great work 



400 



MISCELLANIES. 



progressing through generations of men. The 
strong laborer works with his might all through 
the heat of the day. At the eleventh hour 
comes, perhaps, the feeble and fiuling workman, 
and he also accomplishes liis task ; both of 
them laboring together toward the great com- 
pletion ; both alike receiving their penny. But 
it is all the same a comforting sight to see now 
and then a complete ])icture, as it were, spread 
out before our eyes ; to listen to the end of the 
story. It would seem somehow as if this were 
the case when we hear of a life which can be 
best counted by long years of usefulness and 
conscientious labor ; of kindness, simplicity, 
contentment; of early endeavors and aspira- 
tions, matured and executed in later days ; of 
success well and hardly earned, and interest en- 
during to the last. Then, when it is a little 
tired, perhaps, but in a cheerful and contented 



and humble spirit still, the life which has done so 
much good and willing service comes to an end. 

Shall we quote once more from the paper De 
Juventute? The last words seem fitly to apply 
to the end of this long day's work : — 

" It is night now ; and here is home. Gath- 
ered under the quiet roof elders and children lie 
alike at rest. In the midst of a great peace and 
calm the stars look out from the heavens. The 
silence is peopled with the past ; sorrowful re- 
morses for sins and short-comings ; memories of 
passionate joys and griefs rise out of their graves, 

both now alike calm and sad The 

town and the fair landscape sleep under the star- 
light, wreathed in the autumn mists. Twink- 
ling among the houses, a light keeps watch here 
and there in what may be a sick-chamber or 
two. The clock tolls sweetly in the silent air. 
Here is night and rest." .... 



HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. 



"Why do women nowadays write such melan- 
choly novels ? Are authoresses more misera- 
ble than they used to be a hundred years ago ? 
Miss Austen's heroines came tripping into the 
room, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, arch, and good- 
humored. Evelina and Cecilia would have thor- 
oughly enjoyed their visits to the opera, and 
their expeditions to the masquerades, if it had 
not been for their vulgar relations. Valan- 
court's Emily was a little upset, to be sure, 
when she found herself all alone in the ghostly 
and mouldy castle in the south of France, but 
she, too, was naturally a lively girl, and on the 
whole sliowed a great deal of courage and pres- 
ence of mind. Miss Edgeworth's heroines were 
pleasant and easily pleased, and to these may 
be added a blooming rose-garden of wild Irish 
girls, of good-humored and cheerful young la- 
dies, who consented to make the devoted young 
hero happy at tlie end of the third volume, with- 
out any very intricate .self-examinations, and 
who certainly were much more appreciated by 
the heroes of those days than our modern he- 
roines, with all their workings and deep feelings 
and unrequited affections, are now by the noble- 
men and gentlemen to whom they happen to be 
attached. 

If one could imagine the ladies of whom we 
have been speaking coming to life again, and 
witnessing all tlic vagaries and agonizing expe- 
riences and deadly calm and irrepressible emo- 
tion of their granddaughters, the heroines of the 
present day, what a bewildering scene it would 
be ! Evelina and Cecilia ought to faint with 
horror! Madame Duval's most shocking ex- 
pressions were never so alarming as the remarks 
they might now hear on all sides. Elizabeth 
Bennett would certainly burst out laughing, 
Emma might lose her temper, and Fanny Price 



would turn scarlet and stop her little ears. Per- 
haps Emily of Udolpho, more accustomed than 
the others to the horrors of sensation, and hav- 
ing once faced those long'and terrible passages, 
might be able to hold her own against such a 
great-granddaughter as Aurora Floyd or Lady 
Audley. But how Avould she deal with the 
soul-workings and heart-troubles of Miss Kava- 
nagh's Adele, or our old favorite Ethel May in 
the Dnisji Chain, or Cousin Phillis, or Margaret 
Hale, or Jane Eyre, or Lucy Snowe, or Dinah, 
or Maggie Tulliver"s distractions, or poor noble 
Romola's perplexities ? Emily would probably 
prefer any amount of tortuous mysteries, wind- 
ing staircases and passages, or groans and 
groans, and yards and yards of faded curtains, 
to the task of mastering these modern intrica- 
cies of feeling and doubting and sentiment. 

Are the former heroines women as they were, 
or as they were supposed to be in those days? 
Are the women of whom women write now, 
women as they are, or women as they are sup- 
posed to be ? Does the modern taste demand a 
certain sensation feeling, sensation sentiment, 
only because it is actually experienced ? 

This is a question to be answered on some 
other occasion, but, in the mean time, it would 
seem as if all the good humors and good spirits 
of former generations had certainly deserted our 
own heart-broken ladies. Instead of cheerful 
endurance, the very worst is made of every 
passing discomfort. Their laughter is forced, 
even their happiness is only calm content, for 
tiiey can not so readily recover from the two 
first volumes. They no longer smile and trip 
tlirough country-dances hand in hand with their 
adorers, but waltz with heavy hearts and dizzy 
brains, while the hero who scorns them looks 
on. Open the second volume, you will see tliat, 



HEROINES AND THEIU GRANDMOTHERS. 



401 



instead of sitting in the drawing-room or pluck- 1 
ing roses in the bower, or looking pretty and 
pleasant, they are lying on their beds with ag- 
onizing headaclies, walking desperately along 
the streets they know not whither, or staring 
out of window in blank despair. It would be 
curious to ascertain in how great a degree lan- 
guage measures feeling. People nowadays, 
with the help of the penny-post and the tele- 
graph, and the endless means of communication ' 
and of coming and going, are certainly able to 
care for a greater number of persons than they \ 
could have done a hundred years ago ; perhaps ' 
they are also able to care more for, and to be 1 
more devotedly attached to, those whom they \ 
already love ; they certainly say more about it, 
and, perhaps, with its greater abundance and : 
opportunity, expression may have depreciated 
in value. And this may possibly account for 
some of the difterence between the reserved and 
measured language of a Jane Bennett and the 
tempestuous confidences of an Elizabeth Gil- ■ 
mour. Much that is written now is written 
with a certain exaggeration and an earnesiness 
which was undreamt of in the placid days when, 
according to Miss Austen, a few assembly balls 
and morning visits, a due amount of vexation 
■ reasonably surmounted, or at most "smiles 
reined in, and spirits dancing in private rap- 
ture," a journey to Bath, an attempt at private 
theatricals, or a thick packet of explanations 
hurriedly signed with the hero's initials, were 
the events, the emotions, the aspirations of a . 
lifetime. They had their faults and their ac- j 
complishments : witness Emma's very mild per- ' 
formances in the way of portrait-taking ; but > 
as for tracking murderers, agonies of mystery, i 
and disappointed affections, flinging themselves 
at gentlemen's heads, marrying two husbands at I 
once, flashing with irrepressible emotion, or only 
betraying the deadly conflict going on within by ! 
a slight quiver of the pale lip — such ideas never 
entered their pretty little heads. They feinted 
a good deal, we must confess, and wrote long 
and tedious letters to aged clergymen residing 
in the country. They exclaimed " La !" when 
anything surprised them, and were, we believe, 
dreadfully afraid of cows, notwithstanding their 
country connection. But they were certainly a 
more amiable race than their successors. It is i 
a fact that people do not usually feel the same 
affection for phenomcnons, however curious, I 
that they do for perfectly commonplace human 
creatures. And yet at the same time we con- 
fess that it does seem somewhat ungrateful to 
complain of these living and adventurous hero- 
ines to whom, with all their vagaries, one has j 
owed such long and happy hours of amusement 
and entertainment and comfort, and who have 
gone through so much for our edification. 

Still one can not but wonder how Miss Aus- 
ten would have written if she had lived to-day 
instead of yesterday. It lias been often said 
that novels might be divided into two great di- 
visions — the objective and the subjective : al- 
most all men's novels belong to the former ; al- j 
Co 



most all women's, nowadays, to the latter defi- 
nition. Analysis of emotion instead of analysis 
of character, the history of feeling instead of the 
history of events, seems to be the method of the 
majority of penwomen. The novels that we 
have in hand to review now are ex4m])lcs of 
this mode of treatment, and the truth is, that 
except in- the case of the highest art and most 
consummate skill, there is no com])arison be- 
tween the interest excited by facts and general 
characteristics, as compared with the interest 
of feeling and emotion told with only the same 
amount of perception and ability. 

Few people, for instance, could read the story 
of the poor lady who lived too much alone with- 
out being touched by the simple earnestness with 
which her sorrows are written of, although in 
the bare details of her life there might not be 
much worth recording. But this is the history 
of poor Mrs. Stern's feelings more than that of 
her life — of feelings very sad and earnest and 
passionate, full of struggle for right, with truth 
to help and untruth to bewilder her; with pow- 
er and depth and reality in her struggles, which 
end at last in a sad sort of twilight that seems 
to haunt one as one shuts up the book. In 
George G'eith, of which we will speak more 
presently, there is the same sadness and minor 
key ringing all through the composition. In- 
deed, all this author's tunes are very melan- 
choly — so melancholy that it would seem al- 
most like a defect if they were not at the same 
time very sweet as well as very sad. Too Murk 
Alone is a young woman who marries a very si- 
lent, upright, and industrious chemical experi- 
mentalist. He has well-cut features, honorable 
feelings, a genius for discovering cheap ways of 
producing acids and cliemicals, as well as ideas 
about cyanosium, which combined with his per- 
fect trust in and neglect of his wife, very nearly 
bring about the destruction of all tlieir domes- 
tic happiness. She is a pale, sentimental young 
woman, with raven-black hair, clever, and long- 
ing for sympathy — a femme incomprise, it must 
be confessed, but certainly much more charm- 
ing and pleasant and pathetic than such people 
usually are. Days go by, lonely alike for her 
without occupation or friendship or interest ; 
she can not consort with the dull and vulgar 
people about her ; she has her little son, but he 
is not a companion. Her husband is absorbed 
in his work. She has no one to talk to, noth- 
ing to do or think of. She lives all alone in the 
great noisy life-full city, sad and pining and wist- 
ful and weary. Here is a little sketch of her : 

" Lina was sitting, thinking about the fact 
that slie had been married many months more 
than three years, and that on the especial Sun- 
day morning in question she was just of age. 
It was still early, for Mr. Storn, according to 
the feshion of most London folks, borrowed 
hours from botli ends of the day, and his wife 
was sitting there until it should be time Ibr her 
to get ready and to go to church alone. Her 
chair was placed by the open window, and 
though the city was London, and the locality 



402 



MISCELLANIES. 



cither the ward of Eastcheap or that of AUhal- 
lows, Barking (I am not quite sure which), fra- 
grant odors came wafted to her senses through 
the casement, for in this as in all other things 
save one, Maurice had considered her nurture 
and her tastes, and covered the roof of the count- 
ing-house with flowers. But for the distant roll 
of the carriages, she might just as well-have been 
miles away from London. . . . Slie was dress- 
ed in a pink morning-dress, with her dark hair 
plainly braided npon her pale fair cheek, and 
she had a staid sober look npon lier face, tliat 
someliow made her appear handsomer than in 
the days of old before she married " 

This very Sunday Lina meets a dangerous 
fascinating man of tlie world, who is a friendly 
well-meaning creature withal, and who can un- 
derstand and sympathize with lier sadness and 
solitude only too well for her peace of mind, and 
for his own : again and again siie appeals to her 
husband: "I will find pleasure ijj^the dryest 
employment if you will only let me be with you, 
and not leave me alone." She only asks for 
justice, for confidence — not the confidence of 
utter desertion and trust and neglect, but the 
daily confidence and communion which is a ne- 
cessity to some women, the permission to share 
in the common interests and efforts of her hus- 
band's life ; to be allowed to sympathize, and to 
live, and to understand, instead of being left to 
pine away lonely, unhappy, half asleep, and ut- 
terly weary and disappointed. Unfortunately 
Mr. Storn thinks it is all childish nonsense, and 
repulses her in the most affectionate manner ; 
poor unhappy Lina behaves as well as ever she 
can, and devotes herself to her little boy, only 
her hair grows blacker, and her face turns paler 
and palei', day by day ; she is very good and 
struggles to be contented, and will not allow 
herself to think too much of Herbert, and so 
things go on in the old way for a long, long 
time. At last a crisis comes — troubles thicken 
— Maurice Storn is always away when he is 
most wanted, little Geordie, the son, gets hold 
of some of his father's chemicals, which have 
caused Lina already so much happiness and 
confidence, and the poor little boy poisons him- 
self with something sweet out of a little bottle. 
All the description which follows is very power- 
fully and pathetically told — Maurice Storn's si- 
lence and misery, Lina's desperation and sud- 
den change of feeling. After all her long strug- 
gles and efforts she suddenly breaks down, all 
her courage leaves her, and her desperate long- 
ings for right and clinging- to truth. 

" She said in her soul -. ' I have lost the pow- 
er either to bear or to resist. I have tried to 
face my misfortune, and I feel I am incapable 
of doing it ... . why should I struggle or fear 
any more ? I know the worst that life can 
bring me, I have buried my heart and my hopes 
with my boy. Why should I strive or struggle 
any more ?' And Lina had got to such a pass 
that she forgot to answer for herself, Because it 
is riy;bt. Bight and wrong, she had lost sight 
of them both.' 



And so poor Mrs. Storn almost makes up her 
mind to leave her home, unconscious that al- 
ready people are beginning to talk of her, first 
one and then another. Nobody seems very 
bad. Every body is going wrong. Maurice 
abstracted over his work, Lina in a frenzy of 
wretchedness ; home-fires are extinct, outside 
the cold winds blow, and the snow lies half 
melted on the ground. The man of the world 
is waiting in the cold, very miserable too ; their 
best impulses and chances seem failing them, all 
about there seems to be only pain, and night, 
and trouble, and sorrow for every one. But at 
last the morning dawns, and Lina is saved. 

Every thing is then satisfactorily arranged, 
and Maurice is ruined, arid Lina's old affection 
for him returns. The man of the world is also 
ruined, and determines to emigrate to some dis- 
tant colony. Mr. and Mrs. Storn retire to an 
old-fashioned gabled house at Enfield, where 
they have no secrets from each other, and it is 
here that Maurice one day tells Lina that he 
has brought an old friend to say good-bye to 
her, and then poor Herbert Clyne, the late rnan 
of the world, comes across the lawn, and says 
farewell forever to both his friends in a very pa- 
thetic and touching scene. 

Lina Storn is finally disposed of in Too Much- 
Alone, but Maurice Storn reappears in disguise, 
and under various assumed names, in almost all 
the author's subsequent novels. Although we 
have never yet been able to realize this stern- 
cut personage as satisfactorily as we should have 
liked to do, yet we must confess to a partiality 
for him, and a respect for his astounding powers 
of application, and we are not sorry to meet him 
over and over again. Whether he turns his at- 
tention to chemistry, to engineering, to figures, 
to theology, the amount of business he gets 
through is almost bew-ildering, at the same time 
something invariably goes wrong, over which 
he has no control, notwithstanding all his in- 
dustry and ability, and he has to acknowledge 
the weakness of humanity, and the insuflicien- 
cy of the sternest determination to order and 
arrange the events of life to its own will and 
fancy. To the woman or women depending 
upon him he is invariably kind, provokingly re- 
served, and faithfully devoted. He is of good 
family and extremely proud, and he is obliged 
for Aarious reasons to live in the city. All 
through the stories one seems to hear a suggest- 
ive accompanying roll of cart-wheels and car- 
riages. Poor Lina's loneliness seems all the 
more lonely for the contrast of the busy move- 
ment all round about her own silent, sad life. 
"At first it seemed to give a sort of stimulus 
to her own existence, hearing the carts roll by, 
the cabs rattle past, the shout and hum of hu- 
man voices break on her ear almost before she 

was awake of a morning But wear takes 

the gloss off all things, even off the sensation of 
being perplexed and amused by the whirl of life." 

In City and Suburb, this din of London life, 
and the way in which city people live and strive, 
is capitally described ; the heroine is no less a 



HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. 



403 



person than a Lady Mayoress, a certain Ruby 
Ruthven, a beauty, capricious and wayward 
and impetuous, and she is perhaps one of the 
best of Mrs. Trafford's creations. For old friend- 
ship's sake, we can not help giving the prefer- 
ence to Too Much Alone; but Cltij and Suburb 
is in many respects an advance upon it, and 
George Geith is, in its way, better than eitiier. 
The Moors and the Fens did not seem to us 
equal in power to cither of the preceding 
works. 

It seems strange, as one thinks of it, that be- 
fore these books came out no one had ever 
thought of writing about city life : there is cer- 
tainly an interest and a charm about old Lon- 
don, its crowded busy streets, its ancient church- 
es and buildings, and narrow lanes and passages 
with quaint names, of which dwellers in the 
stucco suburbs have no conception. There is 
the river with its wondrous freight, and the 
busy docks, where stores of strange goods are 
lying, that bewilder one as one gazes. Vast 
horizons of barrels waiting to be carted, forests 
of cinnamon-trees and spices, of canes, of ivory, 
thousands and thousands of great elephant tusks, 
sorted and stored away, workmen, sailors of ev- 
ery country, a great unknown strange life and 
bustle. Or if you come away, you find silence, 
old courts, iron gateways, ancient squares where 
the sunshine falls quietly, a glint of the past, as 
it were, a feeling of what has been, and what 
still lingers among the old worn stones and 
bricks, and traditions of the city. Even the 
Mansion House, with its kindly old customs 
and welcome and hospitality, has a charm and 
romance of its own, from the golden postillion 
to tlie mutton-pies, which are the same as they 
were hundreds and hundreds of years ago. All 
this queer sentiment belonging to old London 
the author feels and describes with great clev- 
erness and appreciation. 

George Geith is the latest and the most popu- 
lar of Mrs. Trafford's novels, and it deserves 
its popularity, for although Too Much Alone is 
more successfully constructed as a story, this is 
far better and more powerfully written than any 
of her former stories. It is the history of tlie 
man whose name it bears — a man "to work so 
long as he has a breath left to draw, who would 
die in his harness rather than give up, who 
would fight against opposing circnmstances 
whilst he had a drop of blood in his veins, 
whose greatest virtues are untiring industry and 
indomitable courage, and who is worth half a 
dozen ordinary men, if only because of his iron 
frame and unconquerable spirit." Here is a 
description of the place in which he lived, on 
the second floor of the house which stands next 
but one to the old gateway on the Fenchurch 
Street side : — 

"If quietness was what he wanted, he had 
it ; e.xcept in the summer evenings when the 
children of the Fenchurch Street housekeepers 
brought their marbles through the passage, and 
fought over them on the pavement in front of, 
the office door, there was little noise of life in 



the old church-yard. The sparrows in the trees 
or the footfall of some one entering or quitting 
the court alone disturbed the silence. The roar 
of Fenchurch Street on the one side, and of 
Leadenhall Street on the other, sounded in Fen 
Court but as a distant murmur, and to a man 
whose life was spent among figures, and who 
wanted to devote his undivided attention to his 
work, this silence was a blessing not to be prop- 
erh' estimated save by those who have passed 
through that maddening ordeal which precedes 
being able to abstract the mind from external 
influence. . . . For the historical recollections 
associated with the locality he hadchosen, George 
Geith did not care a rush." 

George Geith lives with his figures, " climb- 
ing Alps on Alps of them with silent patience, 
great mountains of arithmetic with gold lying 
on their summits for him to grasp ;" he works 
for eighteen hours a da_v. People come up his 
stairs to ask for his help: — 

" Bankrupts, men who were good enough, 
men who were doubtful, and men who were 
(speaking commercially) bad, had all alike occa- 
sion to seek the accountant's advice and assist- 
ance ; retailers, who kept clerks for their sold 
books, but not for their bought ; wholesale deal- 
ers who did not want to let their clerks see their 
books at all ; shrewd men of business, who yet 
could not balance a ledger ; ill-educated traders, 
who, though they could make money, would have 
been ashamed to show their ill-written and 
worse-spelled journals to a stranger; unhappy 
wretches, shivering on tlie brink of insolvency ; 
creditors who did not think much of the cook- 
ing of some dishonest debtors' accounts — all 
these came and sat in George Geith 's ofiicc, and 
waited their turn to see him." 

And among these comes a country gentle- 
man, a M. Molozane, who is on the brink of 
ruin, and who has three daughters at home at 
the Dower House, near Wattisbridge. 

There is a secret in George Geith 's life and 
a reason for which he toils : and although early 
in the story he makes a discovery which relieves 
him from part of his anxiety and need for mon- 
ey, he still works on from habit, and one day 
he receives a letter from this M. Molozane, beg- 
ging him to come to his assistance, and stating 
that he is ill and can not come to town. George 
thinks he would like a breath of country air and 
determines to go. The description of Wattis- 
bridge and the road thither is delightful ; lambs, 
cool grass, shaded ponds and cattle, trailing 
branches, brambles, roses, here a house, there a 
fixrm-yard, gently sloj)ing hills crowned with 
clumps of trees, distant purple haze, a calm blue 
sky and fleecy clouds, and close at hand a grassy 
glade with cathedral branches, a young lady, a 
black retriever, and a white poodle, all of which 
George Geith notices as he walks along the path, 
"through the glade, under the shadow of the 
arching trees, straight as he can go to meet his 
destiny." 

Beryl Molozane, with the dear sweet kindly 
brown eyes, that seemed to bo always laughing 



404 



MISCELLANIES. 



and loving, is as charming a destiny as any hero 
could wish to meet upon a summer's day, as she 
stands with the sunshine streaming on her nut- 
brown, red golden hair. She should indeed be 
capable of converting the most rabid of review- 
ers to the modern ideal of what a lieroine should 
be, with her April moods, and her tenderness 
and laughter, her frankness, her cleverness, her ^ 
gay innocent chatter, her out-spoken youth and 
brightness. It is she who manages for the whole j 
household, who works for her father, who pro- [ 
tects her younger sister, who schemes and plans , 
and thinks and loyes for all. No wonder that 
George loses his heart to her ; even in the very be- 
ginning we are told, when he first sees her, tliat 
he would have "taken the sunshine out of his 
own life to save the clouds from darkening down 
on hers. He would have left her dear face to j 
smile on still, the guileless heart to throb califi- 
ly. He would have left his day without a noon 
to prevent night from closing over h%rs. He 
would have known that it was possible for him 
to love so well that he should become unself- 



One can not help wondering that the autlior 
could have had the heart to treat poor pretty 
Beryl so harshly, when her very creation, the 
stern and selfish George himself, would liavc 
sufiered any pain to spare her if it were possi- 
ble. It is not our object liere to tell a story at 
length, which is interesting enough to be read ' 
for itself, and touching enough to be remember- 
ed long after the last of the three volumes is 
closed — to be remembered, but so sadly, that j 
one can not but ask one's self for wliat reason j 
are such stories written. Is it to make one sad 
with sorrows which never happened, but which 
are told with so much truth and pathos that they \ 
almost seem for a minute as if tliey were one's 
own ? Is it to fill one's eyes witli tears for griefs ; 
which might be but which have not been, and ] 
for troubles that are not, except in a fancy, for 
the sad, sad ftite of a sweet and tender woman, ; 
who might have been made happy to gladden all J 
who were interested in her story ; or are they j 
written to cheer one in dull hours, to soothe, to , 
interest, and to distract from weary thoughts, 
from which it is at times a blessing to es- 
cape ? I 

A lady, putting down this book the other da)', i 
suddenly burst into tears, and said, " Why did 
they give me this to read ?" Why, indeed ! 
Beryl might have been more happy, and no one 
need have been the worse. She and her George 
might have been made comfortable together for 
a little while, and we might have learnt to know 
her all the same. Does sorrow come like this, 
in wave upon wave, through long sad years, ; 
without one gleam of light to play upon the wa- 
ters? Sunshine is sunshine, and warms and 
vivifies and brightens, though the clouds are 
coming too, sooner or later, and in nature no 
warning voices spoil the happiest hours of our 
lives by useless threats and terrifying hints of 
what the future may bring forth. Happiness 
remembered is happiness always ; but where ; 



would past happiness be if there was some one 
always standing by, as in this book, to point with 
a sigh to future troubles long before they come, 
and to sadden and spoil all the pleasant spring- 
time and all the sport and youth by dreary fore- 
bodings of old age, of autumn, and winter snow, 
and bitter winds that have not yet begun to blow. 
"So smile the heavens upon that holy act," 
says the Friar, " that after sorrow chide us not." 
" Amen, amen," says Romeo ; "but come what 
sorrow can, it can not countervail the exchange 
of joy that one short minute gives me in her 
sight." And we wish that George Geith had 
been more of Romeo's way of thinking. 

A sad ending is very touching at the time, 
and moves many a syn>pathy, but in prose — for 
poetry is to be criticised from a different standard 
— who ever reads a melancholy story over and 
over and over, as some stories are read ? The 
more touching and earnestly the tale is told, 
the less disposed one is to revert to it ; and the 
more deeply one feels for the fictitious friends 
whom one can not help loving at times, almost 
as if they were real ones, the less heart one has 
to listen to the history of their pains, and fears, 
and sufferings — knowing, as one does, that there 
is only sorrow in store for them, no relief com- 
ing, no help anywhere, no salvation at hand. 
Mr. Thackeray used to say that a bad ending to 
a book was a great mistake, and he never would 
make one of his own finish badly. W^hat was 
the use of it? Nobody ever cared to read a 
book a second time when it ended unhappily. 

There is a great excuse in the case of the 
writer of George Geith, who possesses in no com- 
mon degree sad powers of pathos. Take, for in- 
stance, the parting between George and Beryl. 
She says that it is no use talking about what is 
past and gone ; that they must part and he 
knows it. 

"Then for a moment George misunderstood 
her. The agony of her own heart, tiie intense 
bitterness of the draught she was called upon to 
drink, the awful hopelessness of her case, and 
the terrible longing she felt to be permitted to 
live and love once more, sharpened her voice 
and gave it a tone she never intended. 

" ' Have you grown to doubt me?' he asked. 
' Do you not know I would marry you to-mor- 
row if I could ? Do you think that throughout 
all the years to come, be they many or be they 
few, I could change to you ? O Beryl, do you 
not believe that through time and through eter- 
nity I shall love you and none other?' 

" 'I do not doubt; I believe,' and her tears 
fell faster and her sobs became more uncontrol- 
lable 

"What was she to him at that moment? 
More than wife ; more than all the earth ; more 
than heaven ; more than life. She was some- 
thing more, far more, than any jioor words we 
know can express. Wiiat he felt for her was be- 
yond love ; the future he saw stretching away for 
himself without her, without a hope of her, was 
in its blank weariness so terrible as to be beyond 
despair. Had the soul been taken out of his 



HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. 



403 



body, life could not have been more valueless. 
Take away the belief of immortality, and what 
has mortality left to live for ? 

"At the moment George Geith knew, in a 
stupid, dull kind of way, that to him Beryl had 
been an earthly immortality ; that to have lier 
again for his own had been the one hope of his 
weary life, wliich had made the days and the 
hours endurable unto him. 

" Oh ! woe for the great waste of love which 
there is in this world below; to think how it is 
filling some hearts to bursting, whilst others are 
striving for the lack thereof; to think how those 
who may never be man and wife, those who are 
about to be parted by death, those whose love 
can never be any thing but a sorrow and trial, 
merge their own identity in that of one another, 
whilst the lawful hands of respectable house- 
holds wrangle and quarrel, and honest widows 
order their mourning with decorous resignation, 
and disconsolate husbands look out for second 
wives. 

" Why is it that the ewe-lamb is always that 
selected for sacrifice ? Why is it that the crea- 
ture upon which man sets his heart shall be the 
one snatched from him ? Wliy is it that the 
thing we prize perishes? That as the flower 
fades and the grass wiihereth, so the object of 
man's love, the delight of his eyes and the de- 
sire of his soul, passeth away to leave him deso- 
late ? 

"On George Geith the blow fell with such 
force that he groped darkly about, trying to grasp 
his trouble; trying to meet some tangible foe 
with whom to grapple. Life without Beryl ; 
days without sun ; winter without a hope of 
summer; nights that could never know a dawn. 
My reader, have patience, have patience with the 
despairing grief of tliis strong man, who had at 
length met with a sorrow that crushed him. 

" Have patience whilst I try to tell of the end 
that came to his business and to his pleasure ; 
to the years he had spent in toil ; to the hours in 
which he had tasted enjoyment ! To the strug- 
gles there had come success ; to the hopes, fru- 
ition ; but with success and with fruition there 
had come likewise death. 

" Every thing for him was ended in existence. 
Living, he was as one dead. Wealth could not 
console him ; success could not comfort him ; 
for him, for this hard, fierce worker, for the 
man who had so longed for rest, for physical 
repose, for domestic pleasures, the flowers were 
to have no more perfume, home no more happi- 
ness, the earth no more loveliness. The first 
spring blossoms, the summer glory on the trees 
and fields, the fruit and flowers and thousand- 
tinted leaves of autumn, and the snows and 
frosts of winter, were never to touch his heart, 
nor stir his senses in the future. 

"Never the home lie pictured might be his, 
never, ah, never! He had built his dream- 
house on the sands, and behold, the winds blew 
and the waves beat, and he saw it all disappear, 
leaving naught but dust and ashes, but death and 
despair ! Madly he fought with his sorrow, as 



though it were a living thing that he could grasp 
and conquer ; he turned on it constantly, and 
strove to trample it down." 

No comment is needed to point out the power 
and pathos of this long extract. The early story 
of George Geith is in many respects tlie same as 
the story of Warrington in Pendennis, but the 
end is far more sad and disastrous, and, as it has 
been shown, pretty bright Beryl dies of her 
cruel tortures, and it is, in truth, difficult to for- 
give tlie author for putting her through so much 
unnecessary pain and misery. 

One peculiarity wiiich strikes one in all these 
books is, that the feelings are stronger and more 
vividly alive than the people who are made to 
experience them. Even Beryl herself is moi'e 
like a sweet and tender idea of a woman than a 
living woman with substance and stuff', and bone 
and flesl), though her passion and devotion are 
all before us as we read, and seem so alive and 
so true, that they touch us and master us by 
their intensity and vividness. 

The sympathy between the writer and tlie 
reader of a book is a very subtle and strange 
one, and there is something curious in the ne- 
cessity for expression on both sides ; the writer 
pouring out the experience and feelings of years, 
and tlie reader, relieved and strengthened in 
certain moods to find that others have experi- 
enced and can speak of certain feelings, have 
passed through phases with which he liimself is 
acquainted. The imaginary Public is a most 
sympathizing friend ; he will listen to the au- 
thor's sad story ; he does not interrupt or rebuflf 
him, or weary with impatient platitudes, until 
lie has had liis say and uttered all tliat was with- 
in him. The author perhaps writes on all the 
sad experience of years, good and ill, successes, 
hopes, disappointments, or happier memories, 
of unexpected reprieves, of unhoped-for good 
fortunes, of old friendships, long-tried love, 
faithful sympathies enduring to the end. All 
this, not in the words and descriptions of the 
events which really happened, but in a language 
of which he or she alone holds the key, or of 
which, perhaps, the full significance is scarcely 
known even to the writer. Only in the great un- 
known world which he addresses there surely is 
the kindred spirit somewhere, the kind heart, 
the friend of friends who will understand him. 
Novel-writing must be like tears to some women, 
the vent and the relief of many a chafing spirit. 
People say, why are so many novels written ? 
and the answer is, because there are so many 
people feeling, thinking, and enduring, and 
longing to give voice and expression to the 
silence of the life in the midst of which they 
are struggling. The necessity for expression is 
a great law of nature, one for which there is 
surely some good and wjse reason, as there 
must be for that natural desire for sympathy 
which is common to so many. There seems to 
be something wrong and incomplete in those 
natures which do not need it, something inhu- 
man in those who are incapable of understand- 
ing the great and tender bond by which all hu- 



406 



MISCELLANIES. 



manity is joined and bound together — a bond 
of common pain and pleasure, of common foar 
and liope and love and weakness. 

roets tell us that not only human creatures, 
but the whole universe, is thrilling with sympa- 
thy and expression, speakinj?, entreating, utter- 
ing, in plaints of praise, or in a wonder of love 
and admiration. What do the sounds of a 
bright spring day mean ? Cocks crow in the 
farm-yards and valleys below ; high up in 
the clear heavens the lark is pouring out its 
sweet passionate trills ; shriller and sweeter, and 
more complete as the tiny speck soars higher 
and higher still, "flow the profuse strains of 
unpremeditated art." The sheep baa and 
browse, and shake their meek heads; children 
shout for the very pleasure of making a sound 
in the sunshine. Nature is bursting with new 
green, brightening, changing into a thousand 
lovely shades. Seas washing and sparkling 
against tlie shores, streaks of faint light in dis- 
tant horizons, soft winds blowing about the 
landscape ; what is all this but an appeal for 
sympathy, a great natural expi'ession of happi- 
ness and emotion? 

And perhaps, after all, the real secret of our 
complaint against modern heroines is not so 
much that they are natural and speak out what 
is in them, and tell us of deeper and more pas- 
sionate feeling than ever stirred the even tenor 
of their grandmothers' narratives, but that they 
are morbid, constantly occupied with them- 
selves, one-sided, and ungrateful to the wonders 
and blessings of a world which is not less beau- 
tiful now than it was a hundred years ago, 
where perhaps there is a less amount of sorrows, 
atid a less amount of pain most certainly, than 
at the time when Miss Austen and Miss Ferrier 
said their say. Jane Austen's own story was 



more sad and more pathetic than that of many 
and many of the heroines whom we have been 
passing in review and complaining of, and who 
comjilain to us so loudly ; but in her, knowl- 
edge of good and evil, and of sorrow and anxi- 
ety and disappointment, evinced itself, not in 
impotent railings against the world, and impa- 
tient paragraphs and monotonous complaints, 
but in a delicate sympathy with the smallest 
events of life, a charming appreciation of its 
common aspects, a playful wisdom and kindly 
humor, which charm us to this day. 

Many of the heroines of to-day are dear and 
tried old friends, and would be sorely missed 
out of our lives, and leave irreparable blanks 
on 'our book-shelves ; numbers of them are 
married and happily settled down in various 
country-houses and parsonages in England and 
Wales ; but for the sake of their children who 
are growing up round about them, and who 
will be the heroes and heroines of the next 
generation or two, we would appeal to their 
own sense of what is right and judicious, and 
ask them if they would not desire to see their 
daughters brought up in a simpler, less spas- 
modic, less introspective and morbid way than 
they themselves have been? Are they not 
sometimes haunted by the consciousness that 
their own experiences may have suggested a 
strained and aftected view of life to some of 
their j-ounger readers, instead of encouraging 
them to cheerfulness, to content, to a moderate 
estimate of their own infallibility, a charity for 
others, and a not too absorbing contemplation 
of themselves, tlieir own virtues and shortcom- 
ings? "Avant tout, le temps est poseur," says 
George Sand, "et.toi qui fais avec d'esprit hi 
guerre a ce travers, tu en es pe'ne'tre' de la tete 
aux pieds." 



A SAD HOUR. 



This little introduction is to open the door 
of a home that was once in a house in a pleas- 
ant green square in London — a comfortable 
family house, \\'ith airy and light and snug 
corners, and writing-tables, and with pictures 
hanging from tlie walls of the drawing-room, 
where the tall windows looked out upon the 
trees, and of the study up stairs where the fa- 
ther sat at his work. 

Here were books and china pots and silver 
inkstands, and a hundred familiar things all 
about the house, which the young people had 
been used to for so long that they had by de- 
grees come to life for 'them with that individual 
life with which inanimate things live for the 
young. Sometimes in the comfortable flicker 
of the twilight fire, the place would seem all 
astir in the dance of the bright fires which 
burned in that hearth; — fires which then seemed 



to be, perhaps, only charred coal and wood and 
ashes, but whose rays still warm and cheer 
those who were gathered round the home hearth 
so many yeai's ago. 

On one side of the fire-place hung a picture 
which had been painted by Miss Edgar, and 
which represented a pretty pale lady, with her 
head on one side. The artist had christened 
lier Laura. On the chimney-piece, beliind the 
old red pots, the little Dresden china figures, 
the gilt and loudly-ticking clock, stood the 
picture of a kind old family friend, with a 
friendly yet troubled expression in his counte- 
nance ; and then, against a panel, hung a little 
water-color painted by Hunt, and representing 
the sweet little heroine of this short history. 
Opposite to her for a wliile was a vacant space, 
until one summer, in Italy, the father happened 
to buy the portrait of a little Dauphin or Ne- 



A SAD HOUR, 



407 



apolitan Prince, with a broad ribbon and order, 
and soft fair hair; and when the little Prince 
had come back from Italy and from a visit to 
Messrs. Colnaphi's, he was nailed up in his 
beautiful new frame on the opposite panel to 
the little peasant girl. There had been some 
discussion as to where he was to be placed, and 
one night he was carried up into the study, 
where he was measured with another little 
partner, but the little peasant girl matched him 
best, although the other was a charming and 
high-born little girl. Only a short time before 
Messrs. Colnaghi had sent her home, in a gilt 
and reeded frame, a lovely little print of one of 
Sir Joshua's pictures. She lived up above in 
the study, and was christened Lady Marjory by 
the young people, who did not know the little 
lady's real name. And it happened that, one 
night in this long ago of which I am writing, 
one of these young folks, sitting basking in the 
comfortable warmth of the fire, dreamt out a 
little history of the pictures they were lighting 
up in the firelight, and nodding and smiling at 
her as pictures do. It was a revelation wliich 
she wrote down at the timer, and which she firm- 
ly believed in when she wrote it ; and perhaps 
this short explanation will be enough to make 
the little history intelligible as it was written, 
without any other change. 

There was once a funny little peasant maiden 
in a big Normandy cap and blue stockings, and 
a bright-colored kerchief, who sat upon a bank, 
jiainted all over with heather and flowers, with 
her basket at her feet, and who looked out at 
tlie world with two blue eyes and a sweet, art- 
less little smile which touched and softened 
quite gruff old ladies and gentlemen who hap- 
pened to see her hanging up against the parlor 
wall. 

Opposite to the little peasant maiden was a 
lady of much greater pretensions. No other 
than Petrarch's Laura, indeed, in a pea-green 
gown, with a lackadaisical expression and her 
head on one side. But it was in vain she lan- 
guished and gave herself airs ; — everybody went 
up first to the grinning little peasant maid and 
cried, " Oh, what a dear little girl !" . 

At first the child, who, you know, was a little 
French child, did not understand what they 
were saying, and would beg Mrs. Laura to 
translate their remarks. This lady had brought 
up a lai-ge family (so she explained to the old 
gentleman over the chimney-piece), and did 
not think it right to turn little girls' heads with 
silly flattery; and so, instead of translating 
rightly, she would tell the little maiden that 
they were luugiiing at her big cap or blue 
stockings. 

"Let them laugh," says the little maid, 
sturdily; "I am sure thej' look very good- 
natured, and don't mean any harm," and so she 
smiled in their faces as sweetly as ever. And 
quite soon she learnt enough to understand for 
herself. 

Although Laura was so sentimental she was 
not utterly heartless, and she rather liked the 



] child ; and sometimes when she was in a good 
I temper would tell her great long stories about 

her youth, and the south, and the gentlemen 
I who were in love with her — and that one in 
I particular who wrote such hea])s and heaps of 
I poetry ; and go on about troubadours and the 
j belle-passion, while the little girl wondered and 

listened, and respected Laura more and more 

every day. 

I "How can you talk such nonsense to the 
; child !" said the old gentleman over the chim- 

I "<^y- 

" Ah I that is a man's speech," said the lady 
in green, plaintively. '" Nonsense ! — yes, silent 
' devotion. Yes, a heart bleeding inwardly — 
breaking without one outward sign ; that is, 
indeed, the nonsense of a faithful woman's love! 
There are some things no man can understand 
— no man ! " 

"I am surprised to hetir you say so," said 
the old gentleman, politely. 

"Are you alluding to that creature Petrarch ?" 
cried Laura. "He became quite a nuisance at 
last. Always groaning and sighing, and send- 
ing me scrawls of sonnets to decipher, and caus- 
ing dissension between me and my dear hus- 
I band. The man disgraced himself in the end 
by taking up with some low, vulgar minx or 
I other. That is what you will find," she con- 
tinned, addressing the little girl — "men are 
, false ; the truth is not in them. It is our sad 
I privilege to be faithful — to die breathing the 
name beloved; heigh-ho!" and though she 
, spoke to the little girl, she looked at the old 
gentleman over the chimney-piece. 

" I hear every day of a new arrival expected 
among us," said he, feeling uncomfortable, and 
wishing to change the subject; "a little Prince 
in a blue coat all covered over with diamonds." 

"A Prince!" cried Laura, brightening up — 
" delightful ! You are, perhaps, aware that I 
have been accustomed to such society before 
this?" 

"This one is but a child," said the old gen- 
tleman ; " but they say he is a very pretty lit- 
tle fellow." 

"Oh, I wonder — I wonder if he is the little 
Prince I dreamt of," thought the little girl. 
" Oh, how they are all talking about him !" 

" Of course they will put him in hei'e," said 
Laura. "I want to have news of the dear 
court." 

" They were talking of it," said the old gen- 
tleman. "And the other night in the study 
they said he would make a nice pendant for our 
little friend here." 

When the little peasant maiden heard this, 
her heart began to beat, so that the room seem- 
ed to swim round and round, and if slie had not 
held on by the purple bank she would certainly 
have slipped down on to the car])et. 

" I have never been into the study," said 
Laura, fractiously ; "pray, who did you meet 
there when they carried you up the other night 
to examine the marks on your back ?" 

" A very delightful circle," said the old gen- 



408 



MISCELLANIES. 



tleman ; "several old friends, and some very 
distinguished people — Mr. Washington, Dr. 
Johnson, the Duke, Sir Joshua, and a most 
charming little lady, a friend of his, and all his 
R. A.'s in a group. Our host's grcat-gi-and- 
father is also there, and Major Andre, in whom 
I am sure all gentle ladies must take an inter- 
est." 

" I never heard of one of tliem," said Laura, 
tossing her head, "And the little girl, pray 
who is she?" 

"A very cliarming little person, with round 
eyes, and a muft', and a big bonnet. Our dear 
young friend here would make lier a nice little 
maid." 

Tlie little peasant child's heart died within 
her. "A maid I Yes, yes; that is my station. 
Ah, what a little simpleton I am ! Who am I, 
that the Prince should look at me ? What was 
I thinking about? Ah, what u silly child I 
am!" 

And so, when night came, she went to sleep 
very sad, and very much ashamed of herself, 
upon her purple bank. All night long she 
dreamed wild dreams. She saw the little Prince 
coming and going in his blue velvet coat, and 
his long fiiir hair, and sometimes he looked at 
her scornfulh'. 

"You low-born, wretched little peasant child," 
said he, " do you expect that I, a prince, am go- 
ing to notice you?" 

But sometimes he looked kind, and once he 
held out his hand ; and the little girl fell down 
on her knees, in her dreams, and was just go- 
ing to clasp it, when there came a tremendous 
clap of thunder and a great flash of lightning, 
and, waking up with a start, she heard tlie door 
bang as some one left the room with a candle, 
and a clock struck eleven, and some voices seem- 
ed dying away, and then all was quite dark and 
quiet again. 

But when morning came, and the little girl 
opened her eyes, what was, do you think, the 
first thing she saw leaning up against tlie back 
of a chair ? Any body who has ever been in 
love, or ever read a novel, will guess that it was 
the little Prince, in his blue coat, witli all his 
beautiful orders on, and his long fair hair, and 
his blue eyes already wide open and fixed upon 
the little maid. 

"Ah, madam," said he, in French, "at last 
we meet. 1 have known you for years past. 
When I was in the old palace in Italy, I used 
to dream of you night after night. There was 
a marble terrace outside the window, with 
statues standing in the sun, and orange-trees 
blooming year by year. There was a painted 
ceiling to the room, Avith flying figures flitting 
round a circle. There was a great blue sky 
without, and deep shadows came striking across 
the marble floor day after day at noon. And I 
was so weaiy, oh ! so weary, until one night I 
saw you in my dreams, and you seemed to say, 
' Courage, little Prince, courage. I, too, am 
Availing for you. Courage, dear little Prince.' 
And now, at last, we meet, madam," he cried, 



clasping his hands. "Ah! do not condemn 
me to despair." 

The little peasant maiden felt as if she could 
die of happiness. 

"Oh Prince, Prince," she sobbed, "Oh, 
what shall I say? Oh, I am not worthy of 
you. Oh, you are too good and great for such 
a little wretch as I. There is a young lady up 
stairs who will suit you a thousand times better ; 
and I will be your little maid, and brush your 
beautiful coat." 

But the Prince laughed away her scruples 
and terrors, and vowed she was fit to be a 
princess any day in all the year ; and, indeed, 
tiie little girl, though she thouglit so humbly of 
herself, could not but see how well he thought 
of her. And so, all that long happy day, the 
children talked and chattered from morning to 
night, rather to the disgust of Laura, Who would 
have preferred holding forth herself. But the 
old gentleman over the chimney looked on with a 
gentle smile on his kind red face, and nodded his 
iicad encouragingly at them every now and then. 

All that day the little peasant maiden was 
perfectly happy, and, when evening fell, went 
to sleep as usual upon her flowery bank, looking 
so sweet and so innocent that the little Prince 
vowed and swore to himself that all his life 
should be devoted to her, for he had never seen 
her like, and that she slioidd have a beautiful 
crown and a velvet gown, and be happy for ever 
and ever. 

Poor little maiden ! When the next morn- 
ing came, and she opened her sweet blue_ eyes, 
alas, it was in vain, in vain — in vain to this 
poor little loving heart. There stood the arm- 
chair, but the Prince w^as gone. The shutters 
were open, the sunshine was streaming in Avith 
the fresh morning air ; but the room was dark 
and dreary and empty to her. The little Prince 
was no longer there, and, if she thought she 
could die of happiness the day before, to-day it 
seemed as if she must live forevfer, her grief was 
so keen, the pang so cruel, that it could never 
end. 

Quite cold and shivering, she turned to Laura, 
to ask if she knew any thing ; but Laura could 
only inform her that she had always said so — 
men were false — silent devotion, hearts break- 
ing v/ithout one sign, were a woman's privilege, 
etc. But, indeed, the little peasant girl hardly 
heard what she was saying. 

"The housemaid carried him off into the 
study, my dear," said the old gentleman, very 
kindly, "this morning befoVe you were awake. 
But never mind, for she sneezed three times be- 
fore she left the room." 

" Oh, what is that to me ?" moaned the little 
peasant maiden. 

" Don't you know ?" said the old gentleman, 
mysteriously. "Three sneezes on a Friday 
break the enchantment which keeps us all here, 
and to-night at twelve o'clock we will go and 
pay your little Prince a visit." 

The clock Avas striking twelve when the little 



A SAD HOUR. 



peasant girl, waking from an uneasy dream, 
felt herself tapped on the shoulder. 

"Come, my deai", jump," said the old gen- 
tleman, holding out his hand, and leaving the 
indignant Laura to scramble down by herself as 
best she could. 

This she did, showing two long thin legs, 
cased in blue silk stockings, and reached the 
ground at last, naturally very sulky, and great- 
ly ott'ended by this want of attention. 

" Is this the way I am to be treated ?" said 
she, shaking out her train, and brushing past 
them into the passage. 

There she met several ladies and gentlemen 
hurrying up from the dining-room, and the little 
Prince, in the blue coat, rushing towards the 
drawing-room door. 

" You will find your love quite taken up with 
the gentleman from the chimney-piece," said 
Laura, stopping him spitefully. "Don't you 
see them coming hand in hand? He seems 
quite to have consoled her for your absence." 

And alas! at that instant the poor little 
maiden, in an impulse of gratitude, had flung 
her arms round her kind old protector. " Will 
you really take me to him ?" she cried ; " Oh 
how good, how noble you are !" 

" Didn't I tell you so?" said Laura, with a 
laugh. 

The fiery little Prince flashed up with rage 
and jealousy. He dashed his hand to his fore- 
head, and then, when the little peasant maid 
came up suddenl}', all trembling with shy hap- 
piness, he made her a very low and sarcastic bow 
and turned ujion his heel. 

Ah me ! Here was a tragedy. The poor lit- 
tle girl sank down in a heap on the stairs all 
insensible. The little Prince, never looking 
once behind, walked up very stately straight 
into the study again, where he began to make 
love to Sir Joshua's little lady with the big bon- 
net and the big round eyes. 

There was quite a hum of conversation going 
on in the room. Figures coming and going and 
saluting one another in a courtly old-fashioned 
way. Sir Joshua, with his trumpet, was walk- 
ing up and down arm-in-arm with Dr. Johnson ; 
the doctor scowling every now and then over 
his shoulder at Mr. Washington's bust, who took 
not the slightest notice. " Ha ! ten minutes 
past midnight," observed the General, looking 
at the clock. " It is, I believe, well ascertained 
that there exists some considerable difference 
between the hour here and in America. I know 
not exactly what that difterence is. If I did I 
could calculate the time at home." 

" Sir," said Dr. Johnson, " any fool could do 
as much." 

The bust met this sally with a blank and 
haughty stare, and went on talking to the French 
lady who was leaning against the cabinet. 

In the mean time the members of the Royal 
Academy had all come clambering down from 
their places, leaving the model alone in the lamp- 
lighted hall where they had been assembled. He 
remained to put on his clothes and to extinguish 



the lights which had now been burning for some 
hundred years. At night, when we were all 
lying stretched out on our beds, how rarely we 
think of the companies gathering and awaken- 
ing in our darkened rooms below ! Mr. H. C. 
Andersen was one of the first to note these mid- 
night assemblies, and to call our attention to 
them. In a very wise and interesting book 
called The Nutcracker of Nuremberrj (written 
by some learned German many years ago) there 
is a curious account of one of these meetings, 
witnessed by a little wakeful girl. On this night, 
alas, no one was waking ; the house was dim with 
silence and obscurity, and the sad story of my 
little peasant maiden told on with no lucky in- 
terruption. Poor, poor little maiden ! There 
she lay, a little soft round heap upon the stairs. 
The people coming and going scarcely noticed 
her, so busy were they making the most of their 
brief hour of life and liberty. The kind old 
gentleman from over the chimney-piece stood 
rubbing her little cold hands in his, and sup- 
porting her drooping head upon his knee. 
Through the window the black night trees shiv- 
ered and the moon rose in the drifting sky. The 
church-steeple struck the half-hour, and the peo- 
ple hurried faster and faster. 

"Tira, lira, lira," sung a strange little figure 
dressed in motley clothes, suddenly stopping on 
its way. "What have we here? What have 
we here ? A little peasant maid fivinting in the 
moonlight — an old gentleman trying to bring 
her to ! Is she your daughter, friend ? Is she 
dead or sick or shamming ? Why do you waste 
your precious moments? Chuck her out of 
window, Toby. Throw the babby out of win- 
dow. I am Mr. Punch off the inkstand;" and 
with another horrible chuckle the little figure 
seemed to be skipping away. 

"Stop, sir," said the old gentleman, very 
sternly. "Listen to what I have to tell you. 
If you see a little Prince up stairs in a blue vel- 
vet coat, tell him for me that he is a villain and 
a false heart; and if this young lady dies of 
grief it is he who has killed her; she was seek- 
ing him when he spurned her. Tell him this, 
if you please, and ask him when and where he 
will be pleased to meet me, and what weapons 
he will choose." 

"I'll tell him," said Mr. Punch, and he was 
off in a minute. Presently he came back (some- 
what to the old gentleman's surprise). ' ' I have 
seen your little Prince," said he, "and given 
him your message; but I did not wait for an 
answer. 'Twere a pity to kill him, you cruel- 
hearted old gentleman. What would the little 
girl say when she came to life ?" And Punchinel- 
lo, who was really kind-hearted, although flighty 
at first and odd in manner, knelt down and took 
the little pale girl into his arms. Her head fell 
heavily on his shoulder. " Oh dear ! What is to 
be done with her?" sighed the old gentleman, 
helplessly wringing his hands and looking at her 
with pitiful eyes ; and all the while the moon 
streamed full upon the fontastic little group. 



410 



MISCELLANIES. 



Meantime the little Prince up stairs had been 
strutting up and down hand in hand with the 
English beauty, little Lady Marjory, of tiie round 
brown eyes. To be sure he was wondering and 
longing after his little peasant maiden all the 
while, and wistfully glancing at the door. But 
not the less did he talk and make gallant speeches 
to her little ladyship, who only smiled and took 
it all as a matter of course, fur she was a young 
lady of the world and accustomed to such atten- 
tions from gentlemen. It naturally followed, 
however, that the Tiince, who was thinking of 
other things, did not shine as usual in conversa- 
tion. 

Laura had made friends with the great-grand- 
father, who was an elegant scholar and could 
speak the most perfect Italian. " See what a 
pretty little pair," said he ; " how well matched 
they are!" 

"A couple of silly little chits," said she, 
"what can they know of love and passion?" 
and she cast up a great quavering glance with 
her weak blue eyes. "Ah! believe me, sir," 
said she, " it is only at a later age that women 
learn to feel that agonizing emotion, that they 
fade and pine away in silence. Ah-ha! What 
a tale would it be to tell, that untold story of 
woman's wrongs and un — unrequited love!" 

" Ookedookedoo, there's a treat in store for 
you, young man," said Mr. Punch, skipping by. 
"Will you have my ruffles to dry your tears? 
Go it, old girl." And away he went, leaving 
Laura speechless from indignation. He went 
on to where the Prince was standing, and tap- 
ped him on the shoulder. 

" Wliere do you come from, you strange little 
man ?" said Lady Marjory. 

" There are many strange things to be seen 
to-night," said Punch, mysteriously hissing out 
his words. " There's a little peasant girl faint- 
ing and dying in the moonlight ; she was com- 
ing to find her love, and he spurned her; and 
there is an old gentleman trying to bring her to 
life. Her heart is breaking, and he wants blood 
to anoint it, he says— princely blood — shed in 
the moonlight, drop by drop from a f;ilse heart, 
and it is for you to choose the time and the place. 
This lady will have to find another cavalier, and 
will she like him. Prince, with fool's cap and 
bells, and a linmp before and behind? In that 
case," says Mr. Punch, with a caper, "I am 
her very humble servant." 

Lady Marjory did not answer, but looked 
vei'y haughty, as fasliionable young ladies do, 
and Mr. Punch vanished in an instant. 

"I hope I sjiall never see that person again," 
said she. "The forwardness of common peo- 
ple is really unbearable. Of course he was talk- 
ing nonsense? Little Prince, would you kind- 
ly hold my muff while I tie my bonnet-strings 
more securely." 

The Prince took the muff without speaking, 
and then dropped it on the floor unconsciously. 
Now at last he saw clearly, in an instant it was 
all plain to him ; he was half distracted with 
shame and remorse. There was a vision before 



his eyes of his little peasant maiilen — loved so 
fondly, and, alas! wantonly abandoned and cru- 
elly deserted — cold and pale, dying down below 
in the moonlight. He could not bear tlie thought; 
he caught Lady Marjory by the hand. 
j "Come," said he, "oh, come! I am a 
wretch, a wretch ! Oh, I thought she had de- 
I ceived me. Oh, come, come ! Oh, my little 
peasant maiden ! Oh, how I loved her!" 

Lady Marjory drew herself up. "You may 
go. Prince, wlierever you may wish," she said, 
looking at him with her great round eyes, " but 
pray go alone ; I do not choose to meet that 
man again. I will wait for you here, and you 
can tell me your story when you come back." 
Lady Marjory, generous and kind-liearted as 
she was, could not but be hurt at the way in 
which, as it seemed, she too had been deceived, 
nor was she used to being thrown over for little 
peasant maidens. The little Prince with a 
scared face looked round the room for some one 
with whom to leave her, but no one showed at 
that instant, and so, half bewildered still and 
dreaming, he rushed away. 

Only a minute before the old gentleman had 
said to Punchinello, "Let us carry the little 
girl out upon the balcony, the fresh air may re- 
vive her." And so it happened that the poor 
little Prince came to the very landing where 
they had waited so long, and found no signs of 
those for whom he was looking. 

He ran about desperately, everywhere asking 
for news, but no one had any to give him. Who 
ever has ? He passed the window a dozen 
times without thinking of looking out. Blind, 
deaf, insensible, are we not all to our dearest 
friend outside a door ? to the familiar voice which 
is calling for us across a street? to the kind 
heart which is longing for us behind a plaster 
wall, maybe. Blind, insensible indeed, and 
alone ; oh, how alone ! He first asked two 
ladies who came tottering up stairs hcljilessly 
on little feet, with large open parasols, though 
it was in the middle of the night. One of them 
was smelling at a great flower w^ith a straight 
stalk, the other fanning herself with a dried 
lotus-leaf; but they shook their lieads idiotically, 
and answered sometliing in their own language, 
— one of those sentences on the tea-caddies, 
most likely. These were Chinese ladies from 
the great jar in the drawing-room. Then he 
met a beautiful little group of Dresden cliina 
children, pelting each other with flowers off the 
chintz chairs and sofas, but they laughed and 
danced on, and did not even stop to answer his 
questions. Then came a long procession of per- 
sons all dressed in black and wliite walking se- 
dately, running, sliding up the banisters, riding 
donkeys, on horses, in carriages, pony-chaises, 
omnibuses, bathing-machines ; old ladies with 
bundles, huge umbrellas, and bandboxes; old 
gentlemen witli big waistcoats ; red-uosed gen- 
tlemen ; bald gentlemen, muddled, puzzled, be- 
wildered, perplexed, indignant ; young ladies, 
dark-eyed, smiling, tripping and dancing in hats 
and feathers, curls blowing in the wind, in ball- 



A SAD HOUR. 



411 



dresses, in pretty morning costumes; school- 
boys with apple cheeks ; little girls, babies, pret- 
ty servant-maids; gigantic footmen (marching 
in a corps) ; pages walking on their heads after 
their mistresses, chasing Scotch terriers, smash- 
ing, crasliing, larking, covered with buttons. 

" What is this crowd of phantoms, the ghosts 
of yesterday and last week ?" 

" We are all the people out of Mr. Leech's 
picture-books," says an old gentleman in a plaid 
shooting-costume; "my own name is Briggs, 
sir ; I am sorry I can give you no further in- 
formation." 

Any other time and the little Prince must 
have been amused to see them go by, but to- 
night he rushes on despairingly ; he only sees 
the little girl's pale face and dying eyes gleam- 
ing through tlie darkness. More Dresden, more 
Chinese; strange birds whir past, a partridge 
scrambles by with her little ones. Gilt figures 
climb about the cornices and furniture ; the 
bookcases are swarming with busy little people ; 
the little gold Cupid comes down off the clock, 
and looks at himself in the looking-glass. A 
hundred minor personages pass by, dancing, 
whirling in bewildering circles. On the walls 
tlic papering turns into a fragrant bower of 
creeping flowers ; all the water-color landscapes 
come to life, llain beats, showers fall, clouds 
drift, light warms and streams, water deepens, 
Avavelets swell and plash tranquilly on the 
shores. Ships begin to sail, sails fill, and away 
they go gliding across the lake-like waters so 
beautifully that I can not help describing it, 
though all this, I know, is of quite common oc- 
currence and has been often written about be- 
fore. The little Prince, indeed, paid no atten- 
tion to all that was going on, but went and threw 
liimself down before the purple bank, and vowed 
with despair in his heart he would wait there 
until his little peasant maiden should come 
again. 

There Laura saw him sitting on a stool, with 
his fair hair all dishevelled, and his arms hang- 
ing wearily. She had come back to look for 
one of her pearl ear-rings, and when she had 
discovered it, thought it would be but friendly 
to cheer the Prince up a bit, and, accordingly, 
tapped him facetiously on the shoulder, and de- 
clared she should tell Lady Marjory of him. 
"Waiting tliere for the little peasant child; 
oil vou naugiity fickle creature !" said she, plav- 
fullV. 

"You have made mischief enough for one 
night. Go!" said the Prince, looking her full 
in the face with his wan wild eyes, so that Laura 
slirank away a little abashed, and then he 
turned his back upon her, and hid his face in 
liis hands. 

So the sprightly Laura, finding that there was 
no one to talk to her, frisked up into the study 
again, and, descrying Lady Marjory standing 
all by herself, instantly joined her. 

This is certainly a lachrymose history. Here 
was Lady Marjory sobbing and crying too ! Her 
great brown eyes were glistening with tears, and 



the drops were falling — pat — pat upon her mnft" 
and the big bonnet had tumbled off on her 
shoulders, and the poor little lady looked the 
picture of grief and melancholy. 

"Well, Inever!" saidMrs. De Sade. "More 
tears. What a set of silly children you are ! 
Here is your ladyship, there his little highness, 
not to mention that absurd peasant child, who 
is coming up stairs and looking as white as a 
sheet, and who fainted away again when I told 
her that the Prince's intended was here, but 
not the Prince. As for her — I never had any 
pa " 

"His Highness? The Prince, do you mean, 
— is he safe then ?" said Lady Marjory, sudden- 
ly stopping short in her sobs. " Tell me im- 
mediately when, where, how, did you see him?" 

" The naughty creature, I gave him warning," 
said Laura, holding up one finger, "and so I 
may tell your ladyship without any compunc- 
tion. Heigh-ho, I feel for your ladyship. I can 
remember past times; — woman is doomed — 
doomed to lonely memories! Men are false, 
the truth is not " 

"Has he fought a duel — is he wounded?" 
Oh, why did I let him go !" cried Lady Mar- 
jory, impetuously. 

" He is wounded," said Laura, looking very 
knowing ; " but men recover from such injuries. 
It is us poor women who die of them without a 
g-g-groan." Here she looked up to see if the 
bust of General Washington was listening. 

Lady Marjory seized her arm with an impa- 
tient little grip. " Why don't you speak out, in- 
stead of standing there maundering !" she cried. 

" Hi-i-i, " squeaked the green woman. "Well, 
then, he likes the peasant girl better than your 
ladyship, .and it is his h-heart which is wound- 
ed. It would be a very undesirable match," she 
continued confidentially, recovering her temper. 
" As a friend of the family, I feel it my duty to 
do every thing in my power to prevent it. In- 
deed, it was I who broke the affair off in the first 
instance. Painful but necessary. Who cares 
for a little shrimp of a peasant — at least — I am 
rather sorry for the child. But it can't be 
helped, and nobody will miss her, if she does die 
of grief." 

" Die of grief!" said Lady Marjory, wonder- 
ingly. 

"La, my dear, it's the commonest thing in 
the world," remarked Laura. 

"Die of grief, "repeated Lady Marjory; and 
just as she was speaking, in came through the 
door, slowly, silently stopping every now' and 
then to rest, and then advancing once again, tlic 
old gentleman and Punchinello, bearing be- 
tween tliem the lifeless form of the little peasant 
maiden. Tliey came straight on to where Lady 
Marjory was standing : they laid the child gen- 
tly down upon the ground. 

"We brought her here," said the old gentle- 
man, gloomily, "to sec if the Prince, who has 
killed her, could not bring her to life again." 

"Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed Punchinello, al- 
most crving. 



MISCELLANIES. 



412 

"Poor little thing! dear little tliiriKl" This breast for the old gentleman to pierce tlirough 

■was from Lady Marjory, suddenly falling on her and through 

knees beside her, rubbing her hands, kissing her Now Lady Marjory began to smile, instead 

pale face, sprinkling her with the contents of her of looking as frightened and melancholy as 

smelling-bottle. " She can't, and shan't, and every body else. 

mustn't die, if the Prince or if I can save her. "Button up your coat, dear little Prince," 

He is heart-broken. You, madam," she cried, said she. "You will have to wait long for that 

turning to Laura, " go down, do you hear, and sword-thrust you ask for. Meantime you must 
bring him 
or you 



1 



instantly, do you understand me, ' console tlie little peasant girl, not I ; for it is I 
repent it all your life." And her j who bid you farewell." 



eyes flashed at her so that Laura, looking quite 
limp somehow, went away, followed by Punchi- 
nello. In a minute the Prince came rushing 
in and fell on his knees beside Lady Marjory. 

And so it happened that the little peasant 
maiden, lying insensible in Lady Marjory's 
arms, opened her sad eyes as the Prince seized 
her hand. His presence had done more for her 
than all the tender care of the two old fellows. 
Por one instant her face lighted up witli life and 
happiness, but then looking up into Lady Mar- 
jory's face, she sank back witii a piteous, shud- 
dering sigii. 

The old gentleman was furious. " Have you 
come to insult her?" he said to the Prince. 
"To parade your base infidelity, to wound and 
to strike this poor little thing whom you have al- 
ready stricken so sorely ? You shall answer for 
this with your blood, sir, and on the spot, I say." 
" Hold your stupid old tongue, you silly old 
gentleman !" said Mr. Punch. " See how pale 
the little Prince looks, and how his eyes are 
dimly flashing! He has not come hither to tri- 
umph, but to weep and sing dirges. Is it not 
so, little Prince?" 

"Weep, yes, and sing dirges for his own fu- 
neral," cried the old gentleman, more and more 
excited. "Draw, sir, and defend yourself if you 
are a gentleman." 

But Lady Marjory, turning from one to the 
other, exclaimed — 

" Prince, dear Prince, you will not fight this 
good gentleman, who has taken such tender care 
of your little peasant maiden. Sir,'' to the old 
gentleman, "it would be you who would break 
her heart, were you to do him harm." 

"And why should you want to do him 
harm ?" said the little peasant, rousing herself 
and looking up, with a very sweet imploring look 
in her blue eyes, and clasping her hands. " He 
has done me none. It is the pride and happi- 
ness of my life to think that he should ever have 
deigned to notice me. It would not have been 
fit, indeed, that he, a Prince, should have mar- 
ried a little low-born peasant like myself." 

The Prince, scarce knowing what he did, beat 
his forehead, dashed hot burning tears from his 
eyes. 

" Sir," said he to the old gentleman, "kill 
me on the spot ; it is the only fate I deserve, it 
will be well to rid the earth of such a monster. 
Farewell, little maiden ; farewell, Lady Mar- 
jory. You will comfort her when I am gone. 
And do not regret me ; remember only that I 
was nnwortliy of your love or of hers." And he 
tore open his blue velvet coat, and presented his 



Ah, gracious lady, "cried the poorlittle mon- 
ster, covering her hand with kisses, "it is too 
late, too late ! a man who has broken her heart, 
who has trifled with yours so basely, deserves 
only to die — only to die." 

" Let me make a confession," said Lady Mar- 
jory, speaking with a tender sprightliness, while 
a soft gleam shone in her eyes. " Our English 
hearts are cold, dear Prince, and slow to kindle. 
It is only now I learn what people feel when 
they are in love; and my heart is whole," she 
added, with a blush. 

Such kind words and smiles could not but do 
good work. The little Prince almost left off 
sobbing, and began to dry his eyes. Meanwhile, 
Lady Marjory turned to the little peasant 
maiden. 

"You must not listen to him when he talks 
such nonsense, and is so tragic and sentiment- 
al," she said. "He thought you had deceived 
him, and cared for some one else. He sobbed it 
in my ear when he went away to find you." 

" Hey-de-dy-diddle!" cried Punchinello, ca- 
pering about for joy: "and I know who told 
him — the woman in green, to be sure. I heard 
her. Oh, the languishing creature ! Oh, the 
pining wild-cat ! Oh, what tender hearts have 
women! Oil, what feelings — what gushing 
sentiment !" 

"You hold your tongue, you stupid Mr. 
Punch, "said the old gentleman, who had put up 
his sword, and quite forgiven the little Prince. 

"And so good-bye, dear fi-iends,"said Lady 
j Marjory, sadly indeed, but with a face still 
beaming and smiling. " See, the moon is set- 
ting; our hour is ended. Farewell, fiirewell," 
and she seemed to glide away. 

"Ah, farewell !" echoed the others, stretch- 
ing out their hands. 

The last rays were streaming from behind the 
housetops. With them the charm was ending. 
The Prince and the peasant girl stood hand in 
hand in the last lingering beams. 

"Good-night," said Punchinello, skipping 
away. 

"Farewell," said the old gentleman. 
"Goodness! make haste!" said Laura, rush- 
ing down stairs two steps at a time 

It seemed like a dream to the little peasant 
child, still standing bewildered. One by one 
the ])hantoms melted away, the moon set, and 
darkness fell. She still seemed to feel the clasp 
of the little Prince's hand in hers, she still 
heard the tones of his voice ringing in her car«, 
when she found herself once more on her bank 
of wild-flowers, and alone 



OUT OF THE SILENCE. 



TnEKE is a certain crescent in a distant part 
of London — a part distant, that is, from clubs 
and parks and tlie splendors of llotten Row — ' 
where a great many good works and good in- 
tentions carried out have taken refuge. House- 
rent is cheap, the place is wide and silent and 
airy ; there are even a few trees to be seen op- 
posite the windows of the houses, although we 
may have come for near an hour rattling through 
the streets of a neighborhood dark and dreary in 
looks, and closely packed with people and chil- 
dren, and wants and pains and trouble of every 
tangible form for the kind colonists of Burton 
Crescent to minister to. 

We pass by the Deaconesses' Home : it is 
not with them that we have to do to-day ; and 
we tell the carriage to stop at the door of one of 
the houses, where a brass-plate is set up with an 
inscription setting forth what manner of inmates 
there are within, and we get out, send the car- 
riage away, and ring the bell for admission. 

One of the inmates peeped out from a door- 
way at us as we came into the broad old-fashion- 
ed passage. This was the little invalid of the 
establishment, we were afterwards told ; siie had 
hurt her finger, and was allowed to sit down be- 
low with the matron, instead of doing her les- 
sons with the other children up stairs. 

How curious and satisfactory these lessons are, 
any one who likes may see and judge by mak- 
ing a similar pilgrimage to the one which F. and 
I undertook that wintry afternoon. The little 
establishment is a sort of short English transla- 
tion of a great Continental experiment of which 
an interesting account was given some months 
ago in the Cornhill Magazine under the title of 
Dumb Men's Speech. Many of my friends were 
interested in it, and one day I received a note on 
. the subject. 

"Dumb men do speak in England," wrote a 
lady wlio had been giving her help and counte- 
nance to a similar experiment over here ; and 
from her I learned that this attempt to carry 
out the system so patiently taught by Brother 
Cyril was now being made, and that children 
were being shown how to utter their wants, not 
by signs, but by speech, and in English, at the 
Jewish Home for Deaf and Dumb Cliildren in 
Burton Crescent. 

The great difference in this German system 
as opposed to the French is that signs are as 
much as possible discarded after the beginning, 
and that the pupils are taught to read upon the 
lips of others, and to' speak in words, wiiat un- 
der the other system would be expressed in writ- 



ing or by signs. The well-known Abbe' de 
I'Epe'e approved, they say, of this method, and 
wrote a treatise on the subject, and his successor, 
thcAbbe' Sicard, says (I am quoting from a quo- 
tation), " Le sourd-muet n'est done totalement 
rendu a la socie'te que lorsqu'on lui a appris a 
s'exprimer de vive voix ct de lire la parole dans 
les mouvementsdeslevres." This following very 
qualified sentence of his is also quoted in a re- 
port which has been sent me : "Trenez garde, 
que je n'ai point dit que le sourd-muet ne peut 
pas parler, mais ne salt pas parier. II est pos- 
sible que Mapuiz a]iprit a parler si j'avais le temps 
de le lui apprendre." 

Time, hours after hours of patience, good-will, 
are given freely to this work by the good peojile 
who direct the various establishments in the 
Netherlands where the deaf and dumb are now 
instructed. 

How numerous and carefully organized these 
institutions are may be gathered from a little 
pam].flilet written by the great Director Hirsch 
of Rotterdam, who first introduced this system 
into tiie schools, and who has lately made a lit- 
tle journey from school to school, to note the 
progress of the undertaking he has so much at 
heart. Brussels and Ghent and Antwerp and 
Bruges, he visited all these and other outlying 
establishments, and was received everywhere 
M'ith oi)en arms by the good brothers who have 
undertaken to teach the system he advocates. 
Dr. Hirsch is deliglited with every thing he sees 
until he comes to Bruges, where he says that he 
is struck by the painful contrast which its schol- 
ars present as compared to the others he had 
visited on his way. " They looked less gay 
(moins enjoue) than any of those he had seen." 
But this is explained to him by the fact that in 
this school the French method is still partly 
taught, and he leaves after a little exhortation 
to the Director, and a warning that public 
opinion will be against him if he continues tlic 
ancient system as opposed to the newer and 
more intelligible one. It is slower iti tiie be- 
ginning, says the worthy Doctor ; it makes 
greater demands upon our patience, our time, 
our money, but it carries the pupil on far more 
rapidly and satisfactorily after the early steps 
are first mastered, until, when at last the facul- 
ty of hearing with the eyes has been once ac- 
quired, isolation exists no longer, the sufferer is 
given back to the world, and every one he meets 
is a new teacher to help to bring his study to 
perfection. 

The Jcwioh Home for Deaf and Dumb Chil- 



414 



MISCELLANIES. 



dren in Burton Crescent has only been started 
for a few months. The hidy who wrote to me 
guaranteed the rent and various expenses for a 
year, after which tlie experiment is to stand 
upon its own merits. Since the opening of the 
liome I believe that great modifications have 
taken place in its arrangements, and tliat it is 
now to be enlarged and thrown open to any lit- 
tle dumb Christians who, as well as the little 
Jews, may like to come as day scholars there, 
to be taught with much labor and infinite pa- 
tience and pains what others learn almost un- 
consciously and without an effort. 

F. and I iiave been going up stairs all this 
time, and come into a back-room or board-room, 
opening with folding-doors into the school-room, 
■where the children are taught. As we went in, 
the kind young master, M. von Praagh (he is a 
pupil, I believe, of Dr. Hirscli's), came forward 
to receive us, and welcomed us in the most 
friendly way. The children all looked up at us 
with bright flashing eyes — little boys and little 
girls in brown pinafores, with cheery little smil- 
ing faces peeping and laughing at us along their 
benches. In the room itself there is the usual 
apparatus — the bit of chalk* the great slate for 
the master to write upon, the little ones for the 
pupils, the wooden forms, the pinafores, the pic- 
tures hanging from the walls, and, what was 
touching to me, the usual little games and frol- 
ics and understandings going on in distant cor- 
ners, and even under the master's good-natured 
eye. He is there to bring out, and not^o re- 
press, and the children's very confidence in his 
kindness and sympathy seems to be one of the 
conditions of their education and cure. 

He clapped his hands, and a little class came 
and stood round the big. slate — .1 big girl, a lit- 
tle one, two little boys. " Attention !" says the 
teacher, and he begins naming different objects, 
such as fish, bread, chamois, coal-scuttle. All 
these words the children read off his lips by 
watching the movement of his mouth. As he 
says each word the children brighten, seize the 
idea, rush to the pictures that are hanging on 
the wall, discover the object he has named, aTid 
bring it in breathless triumph. "Tomb," said 
the master, after naming a variety of things, and 
a big girl, with a beamingface, pointed to the 
ground and nodded her head emphatically, grin- 
ning from car to ear. But signs are not ap- 
proved of in this establishment, and, as I have 
said, the great object is to get them to talk. 
And it must be remembered that they are only 
beginners, and that the home has only been 
opened a few months. One little thing, scarce- 
ly more than a baby, who had only lately come 
in, had spoken for the first time that very day — 
" a, a, a," cried the little creature. She was so 
much delighted with her newly gotten power 
that nothing would induce her to leave off ex- 
ercising it. She literally shouted out her plaint- 
ive little "a." It was like the note of a little 
lamb, for of course, being deaf, she had not yet 
learned how to modulate her voice, and she had 
to be carried off into a distant corner by a big- 



' ger girl, who tried to amuse her and keep her 

' still. 

I "It is an immense thing for the children," 
said Mr. von Praagh, " to feel that they are 
not cut off hopelessly and markedly from com- 
munication with tlieir fellow-creatures ; the or- 
gans of speech being developed, tlieir lungs are 

I strpngthened, their health improves. You can 
see a change in the very expression of their 

[ faces, they delight in using their newly-ac- 

i quired power, and won't use the finger-alphabet 
even among themselves." And, as if to cor- 

1 roborate what he was saying, there came a 
cheery vociferous outbreak of "a's" from the 
corner where the little girl had been installed 
with some toys, and all the other children 

1 laughed. 

I do not know whether little Jew boys and 
girls are on an average cleverer than little 
Christians, or whether, notwithstanding their 
infirmity, the care and culture bestowed upon 
them has borne this extra fruit; but th:se little 
creatures were certainly brighter and more live- 
ly than any dozen Sunday school children tak- 
en at hazard. Their eyes danced, their faces 
worked with interest and attention, they seeme 1 
to catch light from their master's face, from one 
another's, from ours as we spoke ; their eager- 
ness, their cheerfulness and childish glee, were 
really remarkable ; they laughed to one another 
much like any other children, peeped over their 
slates, answered together when they were called 
up. It was diflScult to remember that they were 
deaf, though, when they spoke, a great slowness, 
indistinctness, and peculiarity was of course 
very noticeable. But these are only the pupils 
of a month or two, be it remembered. A child 
with all its faculties is nearly two years learn- 
ing to talk. 

One little fellow with a charming expressive 
face, and eyes like two brown stars, came for- 
ward, and cijihered and read to us, and showed 
us his copy-book. He is beginning Hebrew as 
well as English. His voice is pleasant, melan- 
choly, but quite melodious, and, to my surprise, 
he addressed me by my name, a long name with 
many letters, in it. Mr. von Praagh had said it 
to him on his lips, for of course it is not neces- 
sary for the master to use his voice, and the mo- 
tion of the lips is enough to make them under- • 

I stand. The name of my companion, althougli 

] a short one, is written with four difficult conso- 

1 nants, and only one vowel to bind them togeth- 

', er, and it gave the children more trouble than 
mine had done ; but after one or two efforts the 
little boy hit upon the right way of saying it, 
and a gleam of satisfaction came into liis face 
as well as his master's. Mr. von Praagh takes 
the greatest possible pains with, and interest in, 
every effort and syllable. He holds the chil- 

I dren's hands and accentuates the words by rais- 
ing or letting them fall ; he feels their throats 
and makes them feel his own. It would be 

■ hard indeed if so much pfitience and enthusi- 

, asm produced no results to reward it. 

i " What o'clock is it ?" Mr. von Praagh asked. 



OUT OF THE SILENCE. 



41; 



"Foor o'clock," said the little boy, without 
looking up. 

" How do you know?" asked the master. 

" Miss is come," said the little fellow, 

laughing. This was a lady who came to give 
the girls their sewing-lesson so many times a 
week. 

I need not describe the little rooms up stairs, 
with the little beds in rows, and the baths, the 
])lay-room — tlie kind arrangements everywhere 
for the children's comfort and happiness. If 
the school is still deaf and dumb for most prac- 
tical purposes, yet the light is shining in ; the 
cliildren are happy, and understand what is 
wanted of them, and are evidently in the right 
way. For the short time he has been at work 
as yet, Mr. von Praagh has worked wonders. 

Babies, as I have just said, witli all their fac- 
ulties, are about two years learning to speak. 
There is a curious crisis, which any one who 
has had any thing to do with children must 
have noticed, a sort of fever of impatience and 
vexation which attacks them wlien they first be- 
gin to understand that people do not understand 
wliat they say. I have seen a little girl burst 
into passionate tears of vexation and impatience 
because she could not make herself immediately 
understood. I suppose the pretty croonings and 
chatterings which go before speech are a sort of 
natural exercise by which babies accustom them- 
selves to words, and which they mistake at first 
for real talking. Real words come here and 
there in the midst of the babj'-language — de- 
taching themselves by degrees out of the won- 
derful labyrinth of sound — real words out of tlie 
language which they are accustomed to hear all 
about tlieni, and something in this way, to these 
poor little deaf folks, the truth must dawn out 
of the confusion of sights and sounds surround- 
ing them. 

This marvellous instinctive study goes on in 
secret in tlie children's minds. After their first 
few attempts at talking they seem to mistrust 
their own efforts. They find out that their 
pretty prattle is no good : they listen, they turn 
over words in their minds, and whisper them to 
themselves as they are lying in their little cribs, 
and then one day the crisis comes, and a mira- 
cle is worked, and the child can speak. 

When cliildren feel that tlieir first attempts 
are understood, they suddenly regain their good 
temper and wait for a further inspiration. 
They have generally mastered the great neces- 



saries of life in this very beginning of their ef- 
forts : "pooty," ■" toos," "benbutta," "papa," 
"mama," "nana" for "nurse," and "dolly,'' 
and tliey are content. Often a long time passes 
without any further apparent advance, and then 
comes perhaps a second attack of indignation. 
I know of one little babe who had hardly spok- 
en before, and who had been very cross and an- 
gry for some days past, who horrified its rela- 
tions by suddenly standing up in its crib one 
day, rosy and round-eyed, and saying Bess »i;/ 
soul, exactly like an old charwoman who had 
come into the nursery. 

A friend of mine to whom I was speaking 
quite bore out my remarks. He said his own 
children had all passed through this phase, 
which comes after the child has learned to 
think and before he is able to speak. One's 
heart aches as one thinks of thos;- whose life is 
doomed to be a life of utter silence in the full 
stream of the mighty flow of words in which 
our lives are set, to whom no crisis of relief 
may come, who have for generations come and 
gone silent and alone, and set apart b}' a mys- 
terious dispensation from its very own best 
blessings and tenderest gifts. 

I was thinking of this yesterday as we went 
walking across the downs in the pleasant Easter- 
tide. I could hardly tell whether it was siglit 
or sound that delighted us most as we went 
along upon the turf; the sound of life in tlio 
bay at the foot of the downs, the flowing of the 
waves just washing over the low-ridged rocks 
with which our coast is set ; the gentle triumph- 
ant music overhead of the larks soaring and 
singing in tiie sunshine. TJie sea and the 
shingle were all "sparkling, while great bands 
like moonlight in dayliglit lay white and bril- 
liant on the horizon of tiie waters. The very 
stones seemed to cry out with a lovely Piaster 
hymn of praise ; and sound and sight to be so 
mingled that one could scai-cely tell where one 
began or the other ended. 

If by this new system the patient teachers can 
not give every thing to their pupils, the ripjilc 
of tlie sea, the song of the lark, yet they can do 
very much towards it, by leading the children's 
minds to receive tlie great gifts of nature through 
the hearts and sympathy of others, and give them 
above all that best and dearest gift of all in daily 
life, without which nature itself fails to comfort 
and to charm — the companionship of their fel- 
low-creatures and of intelligences answering and 
responding to their own. 



A CITY OF REFUGE. 



To be well, to be ill, to be sad, to be cross ; 
to feel jars that sliake, pains that tear and burn, 
and weary nerves that shrink and flutter, or that 
respond so strangely and dully to the will that 
it seems almost as if we were scarcely ourselves, 
at times, when, longing to feel and to sympa- 
thize with the emotions of others we are only 
conscious of a numb cold acquiescence in their 
gladness or pain — all this is in tiie experience of 
us all, of the most happy as well as of the least 
happy alike, of the softest and hardest hearted. 
Only witli some it is the experience of an in- 
stant and with others of a lifetime. 

The range of this mysterious gamut teaches 
us, perhaps, something of the secret of what oth- 
ers are feeling ; and in the same way that the 
sick and unhappy may imagine what vigor, 
hope, love, the fervor of life and youth, mean, 
to some, by its help, the fortunate may guess 
now and then at the sorrows of years, under- 
stand the hopelessness, the patience, the disap- 
pointment of a lifetime — guess at it for an in- 
stant as they stand by a sick-bed or see the poor 
wayfarer lying by their path. There is a group 
I have now in my mind that many of us may have 
noticed of late- — some tired •^leoide resting on 
the road-side, a sunset marsh beyond ; they have 
lighted a fire of which the smoke is drifting in 
the still air, and the tired eye looks out at tlic 
spectator and beyond him in the unconscious 
simplicity of suffering. We all understand it, 
though we have perhaps never in all our lives 
rested for the night, wearied, by a ditch-side. 
It is so true to life that we who are alive in- 
stinctively recognize its truth and uncomplain- 
ing complaint. 

The persons of whom I am going to write just 
now are most wise in the sadder secrets of life, 
which they have learnt by long years of ap- 
prenticeship. Poor souls ! We liave all come 
across tliem at one time or another. Some- 
times we listen to their complaint, sometimes 
we don't ; sometimes we put out a helping hand 
to pull them along, sometimes we get weary and 
let them go. It would almost seem as if the 
range -of the pity that we feel for others, for the 
same troubles at different times, were as wide 
and as changeful as the very experience from 
which sympathies most often spring. But al- 
though it is easy enough to help our brothers 
and sisters sevfen times — more easy than to for- 
give them— it is difficult enough for us individ- 
ually to help them seventy times seven times ; 
and in this must lie the great superiority of in- 
stitutions over individual effort, of whom the 



kindness is left to chance and to good-natured 
I impulse, instead of being part of a rule that 

works on in all tempers and at all times. 
i It seemed to me the other day that it was real 
help that was being givert to some affiicted per- 
sons whom I was taken to see, at the Incurable 
Hospital on Putney Common, a few of the af- 
flicted out of all those that are stricken and in 
trouble, find in numbers so great that, for the 
most part, we might pass on in despair if it were 
not for the good hope of present and future lieljj 
such places afford. 

We crossed Putney Bridge one bright spring 
day, and drove up tlirough the quaint old Put- 
ney High Street. The lilacs were beginning to 
flower in the gardens and behind the mossy old 
walls. When we had climbed the hill we came 
out upon a great yellow gorsy common, where 
all the air was sweet with the peach-scent of the 
blossom. Its lovely yellow flame was bursting 
from one bush and from another, and blazing 
j against the dull purple green of the furze. We 
i had not very far to go. The carriage turned 
I down a green lane of which the trees and 
[ hedges did not hide glimpses of other lights 
and other blossoming commons in the distance; 
I and when we stopped it was at a white lodge, 
I of which the gate was hospitably open, and from 
I whence a shady green sweep led us to a noble 
and stately house, which was once IMelrose 
Hall, but which is now the Hospital for Incur- 
ables. 

A little phalanx of bath-chairs was drawn up 
round the entrance, and in each a patient was 
sitting basking in this first pleasant shining of 
summer sun. The birds were chirping in the 
tall trees overhead, the little winds were puffing 
in our faces, and those of the worn, wan, tilled 
creatures, who had been dragged out to benefit 
by the comfbrting freshness of the day. Some 
of them looked up — not all — as we drove to the 
door. 

M. sent a small boy with a card to ask for 
admission for some friends of Mr. H.'s, and we 
waited for a few minutes until the answer came. 
All the time that we were waiting, an eager, 
afllicted young fellow was trying hard to make 
himself intelligible to the sick man in the bath- 
chair next to his own. The poor boy could only 
make anxious uncouth sounds; the sick man to 
whom he was speaking listened for a while, and 
then shook his head and turned wearily away. 
So it wasn't all sunshine even in the sunshine 
in the lovely tree-shaded gai-den, with the chir- 
ruiiing birds and lilac-buds coming out. There 



A CITY OF REFUGE. 



41< 



were some attendants coming and going from 
chair to chair. There were other little car- 
riages slowly progressing along the distant 
winding paths of the garden, and presently the 
message came that we might be admitted. The 
matron was away, but the head-nurse said she 
would show us over the place ; and she led tlie 
way across tlie vestibule with its pretty classical 
ornamentation, opening the tall doors and bring- 
ing us into the stately rooms where a different 
company had once assembled, and yet it was 
not so very different after all, for pain and ill 
health are no excessive respecters of persons. 
Tlie Duke of Argyll, who was chairman at the 
last anniversary dinner, spoke of some of the 
persons who used to meet in these very rooms 
once upon a time, before they were turned to 
their present uses — among the rest Sir Walter 
Scott and Lockhart, and Sir Humphry Davy. 
I could almost fancy the kind and familiar foce 
of Sir Walter looking on with gentle interest 
and compassion at the pathetic company which 
is now waiting in the big drawing-room of Mel- 
rose Hall, with the stately terrace and lofty win- 
dows that let in the light so bountifully — lame, 
blind, halt, and maimed, from London high- 
ways, and the distant cotintry by-ways. They 
sit in groups round the tables and windows, 
busy, somewhat silent. At the end of the room 
tliere is a golden-piped organ, the gift of the 
treasurer. A governess, who is one of the pa- 
tients, often plays to the others upon it, and so 
do the ladies who visit the place. Once when I 
was there some one opened the instrument and 
began to play. As the music filled the room 
we all listened, beating a sort of time together. 
It seemed like a promise of better things to those 
who were listening, for themselves and for oth- 
ers. The sitting-room is a lofty, stately place, 
as I have said, with columns and mouldings. 
All about there are comfortable chairs and ta- 
bles, and spring sofas for aching spines that can 
not sit upright, tables for work over which all 
these patient creatures are bending. They have 
still tranquil faces for the most part, quiet and 
pale, and resting for a time in the refuge into 
which tliey have escaped out of the weary strug- 
gle and crowd of life. The privilege is sad 
enough. Heaven knows, and the price they have 
paid for it is a heavy one. 

The head-nurse went from one to another, 
and the faces all seemed to light up to meet 
hers. It is a very simple and infallible sign of 
love and of confidence. "It would not do for 
me to pity them too much," the kind nurse 
said ; "I always try to speak cheerfully to 
them." We who only come to look on may 
pity and utter the commonplaces of compassion 
and curiosity. How tired the poor things must 
be of the stupid reiteration of adjectives and ex- 
clamations ! There was one old woman, so nice 
and with such sweet eyes, that I could not help 
sitting down by her and saying some one of 
those platitudes that one has recourse to. She 
didn't answer, but only looked at me with an 
odd long look. 

Dd 



" She can not speak," the nurse whispered, 
beckoning me away. 

A few of the patients were reading, but only 
a few.. Good Words seemed to be popular, and 
the story in it is particularly liked, they told 
me. Some of the patients do plain work, and 
as I was speaking to one of them the door open- 
ed, and a good-natured-looking man came in. 

" Any of the ladies like to go out for a drive 
to-day ?" he said, in a brisk business-like tone. 

Two or three voices answered, "Only Miss 

," and then Miss began beckoning and 

waving her hand from the other end of the 
room, and was rolled off accordingly for her 
drive in the garden-chair. 

It was not my first visit to the hospital ; but 
though a year had passed, there were many of 
the faces as I remembered them, sitting in the 
same corners, stitching and hooking, blind wom- 
en knitting, the clever, patient fingers weaving 
an interest into their lives with threads of cot- 
ton and wool ; one gentle-looking old lady, in 
a frill cap, was working a pair of slippers, dull 
red with bright green spots. She had but two 
fingers to work with, and only, I think, this 
one painful crippled hand ; but she was work- 
ing away on a frame to which her canvas was 
fixed. 

"I can not like your colors this time, Mrs. 

," the nurse said; "your last slippers were 

so pretty, and your work is so beautiful, that it 
is quite a pity you should not have pretty-col- 
ored wools to set it off." 

The old lady shook her head ; she wouldn't 
be convinced. " These are lovely wools, my 
dear," she said. " I shall certainly go on with 
them. It's all your want of taste, that is what 
I think." And she nodded her head and laugh- 
ed, and stitched on with fresh interest. 

As we went up stairs we were shown lifts and 
pulleys and all sorts of comfortable appliances 
for the use of the patients. I could not help 
admiring the extreme order and neatness of all 
the arrangements, and the freshness and venti- 
lation of all the places we went into. 

In one of the rooms up stairs a funny old fel- 
low, in a tall nightcap, was stitching away at 
his torn shirt-sleeves. He was sitting quite by 
himself in a big ward, with many empty beds in 
it. He laughed when he saw us, winked, waved 
his nightcap with an air, and then informed us 
he was the oldest patient, and was doing a bit 
of work ; he didn't like to trust his shirt to oth- 
ers — not he — he was a poor old bachelor, he had 
to sew his own buttons on — and he was then very 
mysterious and confidential about a shirt which 
had been lost at the wash a year ago. Dark 
suspicions evidently were still haunting him on 
the subject, but he cheered up, winked, laughed, 
waved his nightcap again to us when we went 
away out of the room. " She is my greatest 
joy and comfort," he said, with a bow to the 
nurse, who could not help laughing. The men 
have much more courage than the women, they 
keep about until the last, this lady told us ; 
women would be in bed and refuse to get up, 



418 



MISCELLANIES. 



when the men crawl down stairs day after day, 
and insist iijjon making the eiFort. 

And yet in the men's sitting-room there is a 
much sadder, duller, and more helpless com- 
munity than in the Avomen's. The numbers are 
fewer, and in most cases the brain seems more 
hopelessly affected. One boy was making pa- 
per fly-catcliers, but I don't think any of the 
others were doing any thing. I have a vision 
of an old man sitting at a table, while we were 
there, trying to take up a broken piece of bread. 
His hand passed beyond it again and again ; it 
was by a sort of chance that he feebly clutched 
it at last and carried it to his mouth. 

It didn't seem much to be able to walk away, 
to look back, to remember what we had seen ; 
and yet how is it that we are not on our knees 
in gratitude and thankfulness for every active 
motion of the body, every word we speak, every 
intelligent experience and interest that passes 
through our minds ? 

There was a great scampering of children's 
feet in one of the passages as we came up the 
wooden stairs, and some bright eyes peeped at 
us, and three little girls in the short kilts and 
plaid ribbons of middle-class London retreated 
into a room of which the door was wide open, 
and fled to a bedside, where they all stood shy- 
ly in a row until we could come up. Our guide 
led the way and we followed her in, and there 
from the bed a pair of big bright bi'own eyes, 
not unlike the children's, were turned upon us, 
and a handsome young girl, lying flat on her 
back, greeted us with a good-humored smile. 
"Aunt Mary" the children called her. Big 
and handsome and strong though she looked, 
this poor bright-looking Aunt Mary, she was 
completely paralyzed as far as the head : she 
could not move hand or foot; it was a dead 
body with this bright bonny living face to it. 
She did not look more than six or seven and 
twenty; she had nice thick brown hair and 
even white teeth. With these this brave girl 
had imagined for herself that with practice she 
should be able to hold a pencil and guide it, 
tracing the words against a little desk that was 
so contrived as to swing across her bed when 
wanted. She was perfectly enchanted with the 
contrivance, and said it was the greatest delight 
to her to be able to write for herself. Tiie doc- 
tor, she told me, not without pride, had been 
quite surprised to receive a letter from her one 
day, and could not imagine how she had written 
it for herself. 

Leaving her, we crossed a passage and came 
to a room not far off, where two women were 
lying : one of them had got something in her 
bed that slie was caressing and talking to in a 
plaintive pitying voice, patting as if it was some 
animal or living thing. M., wondering what it 
could be, went up to sec ; she found that it was 
a watch of which the glass was broken. In the 
other bed a gentle-faced, very old woman was 
lying, afliicted with palsy. Her poor body shook 
and trembled painfully as I stood beside the bed, 
and her hands, in attempting to meet, crossed 



and passed each other again and again. I said 
to her that I could not think how she bore her 
affliction so patiently, for the head nurse had 
told me that her sweetness was quite touching, 
she never complained, never said an impatient 
word. 

"When I am not well," I said, "I grumble 
and complain to every body, even for little tri- 
fling ailments. You make me feel ashamed." 

"Ah," the old woman answered gently, "'tis 
good to be still." 

She said it so simply and quietly that it came 
home to me then and there, the gentle remon- 
strance coming from the weary bed where so 
many long hopeless hours had passed for her, 
where she lay patiently enduring while we 
walked away. The other woman was still talk- 
ing to her watch, and did not notice us as we 
passed. 

The room, which was formerly the library, 
makes a delightful room for one or two of the 
patients. It has tall windows, opening upon a 
broad terrace-like balcony, and beyond are the 
same elm-trees and glimpses of sky and common 
that we see from the big room down below. 
There is one great sufferer here who does not 
often get down. She can not sit up, from spine 
disease, and when I saw her last she Avas lying 
by the window, with a fi^ce wrapped in cotton- 
wool, poor soul, for she had been suft'ering tor- 
tures from neuralgia ; and though the dentist 
had come and taken out two of her teeth, she 
was still in pain. Tiie head-nurse pitied her, 
and i-ecommended a little blister to draw away 
tlie inflammation. The patient shrunk and 
laughed and shook her head. She couldn't 
bear any more pain, she whispered imploringly ; 
she Avanted so to get down for a change. A lit- 
tle belladonna plaster where nobody would see 
it, under her cap, so that it shouldn't show, and 
look ugly, and where nobody would see it, please. 
There were two good-sized baskets standing on 
a table near this patient. They were literally 
piled and packed with tracts. " We get a great 
many," she said, seeing me look at them ; " more 
than we can read." Poor soul ! I hope her bel- 
ladonna plaster has done her good. As we came 
away, the nurse stopped for a moment to speak 
to quite an elegant old lady, who was sitting 
up, extremely nicely dressed, in a chair, with 
a grand cap and ribbons, and a knitted lace 
shawl. 

It was getting late, and we began to pass 
bhie-garbed under-nurses carrying little trays 
with teas. The patients who are well enough 
to get down have their meals in the big dining- 
room ; but these little trays looked very nice 
and appetizing; the whole order of the place is 
perfectly appointed. Some of the rooms up 
stairs were like little bowers, with pots flower- 
ing round the windows, bird-cages hanging up, 
pictures on the walls of the friends of the sick 
people. One pale face looked at us as we passed 
a white bed. Her room was like a little chapel, 
with light streaming in from through the flowers 
and bird-cages and the climbing greens upon the 



A CITY OF KEFUGE. 



419 



casement, ar\,d the poor martyr, alas! lying on 
her rack. 

There was another pale face that looked out, 
too, as we passed ; but as we were going in, the 
nurse stopped us, and said she feared the pa- 
tient was dying ; and so we moved awaj-. I 
asked to be taken to a sick woman I remem- 
bered a year before, a kind, merry person, who 
had gone through a terrible operation. She 
was in bed still in the same room, still looking 
the same, bright, friendly, with smart little curls, 
and a friend gossiping by her bedside. 

To see sucli a place as this as it is, to be sor- 
ry enough and tender enough to continue to 
sympathize witli all its suffering, would need, I 
think, a mind scarcely human in its powers. The 
whole subject is so vast, so mysterious, and ut- 
terly beyond our comprehension, that it is easier 
to dwell upon the comforting kindness, the helps 
to endurance and courage, that are to be found 
here more than in any place I ever saw. There 
was one poor girl who had been lying for seven 
years upon her side. All the lines of those 
seven years seemed to me in her white wan 
face. She did not complain, though her eyes 
complained for her ; but she said she had a nice 
water-bed — that was a great comfort ; and her 
cup of milk and toast for tea were beside her, 
so nicely served and prepared that it was a 
pleasure to see the little meal : and there was a 
great bunch of spring lilac-buds in a glass, that 
another patient had brought to her out of the 
garden — the first of the year. 

Up stairs, higher still, there is a room which 
is not generally sliown, where a strange weird 
party of poor little deformities are assembled. 
Little women with huge heads, so sad, so gro- 
tesque and horrible that one's very pity is 
scarcely pity, but wonder. They were sitting 
round a little tea-table, which they were prepar- 
ing for themselves ; one of them was boiling the 
kettle. They seemed quite happy and busj'. 
It was like some pantomime of nature ; like some 
strange people out of another planet, sitting to- 
gether and staring at us with those huge weird- 
like faces, supported by living bodies. And yet 
with all its endless combination of pain and of 
sorrow, this hospital does not send us away sad 
and rebellious at heart, as do many refuges for 
sorrow and trouble : for instance, a work-house 
ward, where there are cases often enough tliat 
might be admitted here if there was room for 
them ; or a sick close room, in a narrow street, 
where the healthy and unhealthy are shut up 
together for days and for nights. Here where 
there is such great suffering, there is also great 
comfort and tender nursing and companionship ; 
there are trees, and grasses, and sweet lilac, and 
gorse-blown winds, close at hand. There is a 
certain liberality in all the arranging and econ- 
omy of the place, that seems to disprove the 
practical notion of Charity being a grinding, 
snubbing sort of personage, who would like to 
get the scales into her own hand if she could, 
and to weigh out .her kindness by the ounce. 
Such a plan as this would defeat its own object 



if the inmates were not well and generously 
tended. Perhaps I should in fairness confess 
to having heard of the bitter complaints of one 
of the patients, who had a fancy for lobsters ev- 
ery day, and who was denied this delicacy ; but 
she is not the first to long for the unattainable, 
and certainly, to some of us grumbling is al- 
most as great a privilege as eating lobsters every 
day. 

It seems fitting and seemly that in a great 
country like ours there should be munificent 
charities, comforting and liberal in their deal- 
ings ; one only longs that their doors should be 
set open more widely, if possible, to the crowds 
that are waiting about them for admission. 
Here is a paper before me, it is two years old, 
and I know not how many have succeeded in 
their efforts ; but looking at it, it would indeed 
appear as if the wayfarers were lying all along 
the road, and the Samaritan passing by has only 
one ass to carry them away upon. 

These biographies are not very long in writ- 
ing, and I may quote one or two that I have 
copied oft' the list : — 

r> i,r»!„ T„==.„fc „„i, (Captain of a Steani- 

Paralysis, Loss of Speech | vessel. 

Disease of the Brain and Debility Governess. 

Disease of the Spine and Joints,) . . (joverness. 
Paralysis j 

P-iysis {^t:Z^ '''''' 

Disease of Spine and Throat Schoolmistress. 

Injury to Spine Working Engineer. 

Paralysis and Asthma Master Tailor. 

These are seven out of 160 — a whole sad life 
of labor and suffering told in a few words. 
There are laundry-women, servants, journey- 
men, dressmakers. It is a comfort to turn back 
to those who are safely within reach of kind 
hands, helpful appliances, and friendly words 
such as those which I heard the head-nurse 
speaking to her patients as I followed her about 
from one room to another. 

It has been proposed lately to establish a 
hospital on somewhat similar principles for chil- 
dren, with this one comforting proviso, that the 
children are to be cured if possible. A doctor 
of very great experience and reputation, who 
once superintended a children's hospital in Par- 
is, and for whose opinion his friends have a 
great and just regard, was speaking on the sub- 
ject to a friend, and saying that there are many 
chronic cases in childhood deemed incurable, 
which are in reality perfectly curable, but 
which require a doctoring of fresh air, of regular 
diet, of cleanliness, etc., that it is impossible 
they should receive at home. I believe it was 
in this way the idea originated, and now the hos- 
pital really seems in a fair way to being estab- 
lished. Four or five people have each promised 
a hundred a year towards it of their own accord, 
without solicitation. When a thousand is as- 
sured, the hospital will be begun. A big gar- 
den is the first thing wanted for the children to 
play in and to exercise their limbs. The chil- 
dren's hospitals, admirable as they are, can not 
keep the little things always, and are obliged to 
cliange their patients constantly. Any body 



420 



MISCELLANIES. 



who has seen the piteous crowd waiting at the 
doors in Great Ormond Street will understand 
the necessity there is for more and more such 
help and assistance to the good work whicii is 
done there. 

Only yesterday there was a little patient who 
had been discharged almost cured from what 
seemed a hopeless and chronic illness, after 
only two months of care in the children's lios- 
pital, who was begging and praying to go back 
from his home in the back kitchen with the 
mangle. One patient! A hundred — a thousand, 
to-morrow, if one searched for them, and knew 
what to do with them when one had found 
them or where to send them. This incurable 
children's hosjjital has, however, good friends 
among peoj^le wlio love tlieir own children, and 
w'ho are willing to conic forward with generous 
hearts and great sums to assist it, and there is 
great hope of its speedy establishment. 

But one of the greatest difficulties that have 
to be contended against at present in the man- 
agement of any thing of the sort is the extraor- 
dinary system which has grown up all about us, 
and which seems to be almost impossible to 
contend with. 

I have the reports before me now of two hos- 
pitals, conducted by different people, each doing 
a great and important work. How much tho 
help might be extended if the machinery were 
more simple and the manner of administering 
aid less complicated and costly, it would be 
hard to say. A great country like ours should 
have noble charities ; niggardliness seems to me 
a for more deprecable fault than excess of gen- 
erosity in the help afforded. But what people 
complain of, and with reason, I think, is that 
part of the money they subscribe, instead of go- 
ing to the objects of their charity — the attend- 
ance, the food, the comfort of the patients— is 
ly the mere fosliion and necessity of the day 
put to strange and vexing purposes : to printing 
little books that nobody reads, to sending circu- 
lars that go straight into the fire, to arranging 
an elaborate machinery of admission that in no 
way benefits tlie patients. Tlie postage and ad- 
vertising and printing of two hospitals comes to 
£1300 in the course of a year; of which £100 
a year for the postage of each hospital represents 
something like, say, 240,000 letters. I don't 
know how many hard days' work 240,000 let- 
ters would mean, and how many of them are 
mere circulars, or how many might be spared ; 
but it seems as if so much of our energy went 
into advertising and crying our good intentions, 
that in time there will be no strength or time 
left for any thing else. 

An experiment has been partially tried at an 
institution where no canvassing is allowed, and 
no public election. The votes — so a friend to 
whom I had spoken on the subject writes— are 
quietly " counted at tlie office, and the result is 
announced." He, however, goes on to say that 
this plan is not successful in a pecuniary point 
of view ; and a charity in which all the power 
was vested in a committee would have still less 



chance of success. I had spoken to him on the 
subject of this incurable hospital, and asked why 
the most pressing cases were not elected by a 
competent board instead of those people having 
the best chance who had most friends, and 
wliose friends were most active in their behalf. 
"You do not know," he said, "all the outcry 
and discontent that such a proceeding would 
give rise to. We should be accused of unfair- 
ness, of partiality. We ourselves dislike the 
system as much as you do, but we can not help 
ourselves ; we are obliged to give in to the com- 
mon cry and common weakness of human na- 
ture, and to take the good and the bad as they 
come together." And so it is, and we must be 
content to accept things as they are, but with 
the bad and the good there is certainly given to 
each one of us an instinct for better things, and 
is it quite impossible that any eft'ort should ever 
be made to disembarrass good and noble things 
from the cumber of sefish-interest patronage 
which weight them so heavily? Is there no 
divine indignation left among us strong enough 
to overturn the tables of the money-changers, to 
chase away those that sell doves in the temple? 

Wliat a horrible complication it seems, look- 
ing at it honestly with unbiased eyes ! Is it 
possible that we are sunk so low tliat we can 
not give freely and with generous, tender, and 
grateful hearts, without this hideous system of 
l)atronage, of rules, of complimentary clapping, 
of bad dinners and wines, of subscrijition-lists 
and names affixed to little miserable scraps of 
crumbs from our table that should make us 
ashamed instead of complacent, as we turn to B 
or A, or whatever our initial may be, and see our 
honest name set down with a shabby price to it, 
like the cheap rubbish in a huckster's shop? 

I think Mr. Froude, in his essay on Repre- 
sentative Men, has put words to a difficulty 
which a great many have felt, but which few 
people have put words to before. It is a diffi- 
culty of words in itself: and concerns the con- 
stant cry of th.' age, the advice of the preacher, 
which comes to us from every side, calling and 
urging us to be good, and bidding us be noble, 
crying that to us is intrusted a mission of love 
and of cliarity. " Go forth," so they say, " go 
forth and fulfill it." And then the difficulty oc- 
curs to some of us, where are we to go forth ? 
how are we to be good ? when are we to be no- 
ble ? Passive charity is useless without a prac- 
tical use for it, and so the teachers acknowledge. 
But have you no neighbors to tend ? they cry, 
no sufferers to comfort by the way ? Are there no 
wayfarers who have fallen by the read-side ? And 
all this is true enough — too true, alas! — for the 
wounded wayfarers may be counted by thousands. 

And yet, as I write I feel that the preacher 
is right in the main, though his talk is satire, 
and he has not sufficiently applied the science 
of the truth he instinctively feels to the daily 
facts of life. Life, I suppose, must for most of 
us be a rule of thumb — if I may be allowed so 
to speak ; and to go forth mugt mean to take a 
cab and call upon a dull friend, or to protest, 



CHIRPING CRICKETS. 



421 



when we see occasion, against wrong-doing of 
any sort, or to take trouble about things that 
do not interest or concern us very much. 
There are some noble and honest natures to 
whom instinctively the impulse comes for ac- 
tion, and for right and great action too — some 
lives whose love and example are benedictions 
to those who are about them — one noble tender 
heart leavening the dough by its unconscious 
generous tenderness and example. These peo- 
])le need ask no questions, for theirs- are the 
voices that answer, not in preaching, but by 
tlieir simpleness, their truth, tlieir tender im- 
pulse. As a rule, we who ask are not tiie peo- 
ple who work and achieve. 

A woman died not long ago who had lived 
some twenty-six or twenty-seven years one of 
those lives that do not question for themselves, 
but that seem like answers to the vague aspira- 
tions of others. I do not know if I may write 
her name, but those who have loved this lady 
will know how it is that I quote lier as one of 
the examples of this bright and resolute devo- 
tion, that shines like a beacon in the storm to 
those who are wandering about in search of a 
way. She was the head-nurse of the hospital at 
Lincoln, where in time a terrible mortality and 
illness overtaxed her strength, and, her strength 
of life being gone, she died. And as I write 
these words, there comes the news of the pass- 
ing away of a man wliose kindness and true 
Christian strength of heart and of mind spoke 
better than any words what a life can be — a 
blessing, a kindness, a help in trouble, to all 
those who have lived round about it. 



I have drifted away from the incimables a 
little ; any one wlio likes to go and see the 
place is welcome, and no one can go without 
coming away touched and humbled, and per- 
haps a little the better for the visit. 

The privilege is a sad one, Heaven knows, 
that belongs to all tliese poor people; but sad as 
it is, when one looks at these gentle and tran- 
quil faces, it is hard to think of those still out- 
side, in a world that looks peaceful enough, and 
pleasant and green to-day from these open win- 
dows, but which is a weary illimitable place for 
those who, with paralyzed limbs and racked bod- 
ies, are hopelessly and helplessly trying to escape 
from the overwhelming tramp of the legions by 
which they are overwhelmed — legions that ad- 
vance upon them as one has sometimes dreamed 
in dreams, by every road, by every turn of life. 
I can imagine poor wearied, hunted souls trying 
to fly from want, from anguish, from loneliness, 
from neglect and cruel words, but their limbs 
will not carry them ; they can not work, they 
are too weak even to beg, friends weary, sub- 
sistence fails, their own hearts fail. TiieDuke 
of Argyll says that nearly GOOO people annual- 
ly leave the London hospitals suffering from in- 
curable disease. Of these how many must 
there be in miserable condition ! One's own 
heart might indeed fail at the thought of such 
tremendous calamity ; but for 6000 incurables, 
how many hundreds of thousands are there not 
among us who are well and strong, and who 
have enough to live and enough to give to oth- 
ers, and asses and pennies to. spare for others in 
their need ? 



CHIRPING CRICKETS. 



I WENT the other night to see a play called 
Bot^ in which a beneficent cricket, chirping on 
the hearth, brings a kindly warmth to the very 
hearts of the people assembled around it. The 
poor, ill-used husband, sitting all night staring at 
the empty grate, softens and kindles under thein- 
fluence of this beneficent cricket. The skepti- 
cal young sailor tears off his disguise ; the nar- 
row-minded taskmaster, after a short experience 
of the chirpings of this friendly insect, becomes 
generous, charitable, and begins to pay the most 
marked attentions to the poor toy-maker's daugh- 
ter. Then, lo, and behold ! the fire-place opens, 
and a glowing apparition comes down the chim- 
ney, and the beaming spirit of the hearth is re- 
vealed to the spectators, who laugh kindly and 
clap applause. 

As we all know, it is not only at the play the 
spirits of the hearth appear. In the darkness 
of these long winter evenings their lights gleam, 
and their voices echo cheerfully through the old 
houses. Newport Refuge (my text for to-day) 
is alight ; other hearths are kindling. There 
is an old house near the river with red wings, 



and a stately roof, and diamond panes, where I 
saw a real spirit on the hearth the other night ; 
only it was more beautiful and shi-ning even than 
the crowned lady at the play — a tall spirit in 
robes of green, lighted by stars, twinkling crim- 
son and golden ; a spirit Briareus-like, with out- 
stretched arms, and beautiful gifts hanging from 
them, and glittering flags and wreaths. All 
round about it stood a crowd of wistful little 
babies, with big round eyes, in which this won- 
derful shining was reflected. Only one night 
in all the year does this lovely wonderful spirit 
appear to the little patients at Gough House Hos- 
pi'tal — poor, tiny, aching creatures, with wounds, 
and pains, and plagues innumerable. Their lit- 
tle pale faces may be seen peeping out of the 
narrow windows of the old house — at the people 
passing by, at the men at work in the wood-yard, 
at the boats sailing along the river hard by. 
Other little children who are well come, nod to 
them, and play upon the old steps leading up to 
the ancient door-way, overwhich "Victoria Hos- 
pital for Children " is written up in big letters 
for those who run to read. 



422 



MISCELLANIES. 



In this community, which the lady iif charge 
kindly gave me leave to explore for myself, 
there are about thirty little children. The first 
room into which I wandered belonged to eiglit 
babies, who are put to bed about six o'clock in 
cradles all round the room. In each cradle lies 
a silent, abstracted, blinking heap ; one nurse 
and a little helpful patient are tucking them all 
busily away. There was not a dissentient voice 
among them. Home babies shout, kick, shake 
the house with their indignant voices. But 
these infants were all good, all going to sleep, 
clutching their prizes and tiny dolls and clenched 
fists behind their little chintz curtains. 

****** 

In the older wards the children were gathered 
round the tall fender in the fire-light, chattering 
to one another, the little blind boy lying flat on 
the floor, the little wliite wan girl in her niglit- 
cap sitting in a tiny wicker-chair, so still, so 
touchingly tranquil, that it gave one a pang to 
see. A sweet-faced rosy little maiden, with 
great brown eyes, is lying paralyzed on her back 
in her crib. 

"I don't want to go home," said one little 
fellow who had come from iiis back-kitchen 
liome to be cured and dipped in these healing 
waters. " I likes being here best." 

"I'm going home," said the little blind boy, 
kicking on the floor. "I'm going home to- 
morrow, I am." 

" He is always saying that," laughed the other 
children. 

"I have been here — oh, a very long time," 
said a tall boy called Georgy : "oh, a long time ; 
but I don't remember. I have been here six 
weeks, I think." 

" He has-been here the longest," said the lit- 
tle children, wagging their heads ; "longer nor 
any one." 

"Do yon like this better than school, David ?" 
I asked one of them. 

David nods and nods. "Ye-es, ma'am," 
says he. All the little children laugh. 

" He don't want to go home," says a little 
girl, sitting up in her ciib. 

They are very happy, poor little souls ! and 
it is not while they are in the hospital that one 
is sorry for them. The lady who has charge of 
them all says the hardest part is sending them 
away ; but others are waiting, and they must 
go in turn. She amused me by describing their 
bewilderment sometimes when they come, at the 
sight of the baths and the water provided. They 
have never even heard of such things at home, 
and can not make them out. Their complaints 
are, many of them, caused by sheer neglect and 
want of cleanliness; and yet, how can it be 
helped ? A man came to the hospital the other 
day ; he had eight children, no work, a wife sick 
in a hospital, and one child very ill at home. 
David is one of tiie seven in a dark kitchen, 
where he lives with a mangle, a sick fiither, a 
thriftless mother. What chance have the poor 
little children ? The mangle can not do every 
thing. It is only a mangle, and it could not 



feed and clothe nine people, though it went on 
of its own accord turning from one year's end 
to another. 

" It is not only that the children are generally 

cured when they come here," said Miss S , 

"but they learn things which they never forget. 
The}' are taught little prayers ; they get notions 
of order and cleanliness. One little girl said 
she should go home and teach the others all she 
had learned. She came from a miserable place, 
poor little thing. One would be glad to think 
that any good influences might follow the chil- 
dren after they have left us." 

For the first time they hear of something be- 
sides tlie squalid commonplaces of their daily 
lives. This hospital is doing true and good 
work in its district : one can only hope that 
others in their places may rise up, and that there 
may be more and more kind teaching and com- 
fort in store for all poor little children, and more 
and more kind hands to succor them, and friend- 
ly roofs to shelter them from the blast. 

The ladies who superintend the children's 
hospital are trying an experiment just now. 
They want to establish a fever cottage some- 
where in the country, to which they may send 
the poor little patients who can not of necessity 
be let into their wards. 

Every one knows the Great Parent Hospital 
in Ormond Street. Yesterday I heard some 
one speaking of a little offshoot in Queen's 
Square, founded by two ladies who take in chil- 
dren afflicted with hip disease — an illness so 
tedious and so long that the other hospitals are 
obliged to refuse them admittance. In town 
and country villages and seaside places people 
are at work, and sisters of charity of one sort 
or another (for it is not the quilled cap which 
makes the difference) are nursing and tending 
their little patients, stirred by the same gentle, 
natural impulse which makes real mothers love 
their little ones with an anxious pain and love 
and fear, in which some women find the great- 
est hapiiiness which this world can bestow. At 
Brighton there is more than one little home for 
sick children. One specially in Montpellier 
Road, for little convalescents, where the care 
is so wise and tender, that people who like my- 
self go to see, come away with a real friendship 
and love for the little place. 

If some mighty spirit were to give us the gift 
of seeing into the lives of the people who are 
passing like ourselves tlirough the slush and 
mud and dim vapors of a London winter, we 
might well be scared, we middle, respectable 
classes, hurrying along from one comfortable 
fire-lit world to another — worlds closed in by 
curtains and shutters, warmed by fires and car- 
pets, steaming with the flavor of good things. 
We go out into the streets, and hurry back 
again to our snug paradises, where white-robed 
houris are singing and playing upon grand 
pianos with golden strings, where ministering 
butlers and waiters and parlor-maids are pour- 
ing claret into thin glasses that sparkle, where 
tables are spread a la Kusse with fruit and with 



CHIRPING CRICKETS. 



423 



flowers, and the faithful are feasting in com- 
panies of six, eight, and ten at this season of 
the year. As they feast they are reclining 
upon seats of mahogany and rosewood, and dis- 
coursing of past and future deeds. Shining is 
tlie broadcloth, spotless the white linen ; veils 
and crowns are set on the heads of the matrons, 
and wreaths lie on the maidens' heavy tresses 
that are platted and stained to gold ; and soft 
words are uttered, and smoking viands pass 
round between the pauses of the conversation. 
But speaking seriously, it seems almost impos- 
sible to some of us living in a certain fashion 
to realize the state of mind in which certain 
other people alongside are existing — people 
whose chief possessions are a few rags perhaps, 
a body to hunger and weary with, itching feet 
to tramp along the pavement, the fierce winds 
blowing at the corners, the gusts of rain, and 
the piled-up mud in the streets. The wet 
railings to lean against are theirs too, a curb- 
^^ stone perhaps to rest upon, and the bitter fruits 
• of the knowledge of hunger, of patience, of 

utter weariness, of the length of the night. 

"I dare say you don't know what it is to 
w:ilk about all night long," a woman said to 
me one day not long ago ; and her eyes filled 
up with tears as she spoke quietly in a sort of 
whisper. "I walked about three nights this 
week," she said, " till a person I met took pity 
on me, and let me into her room. She was 
only a poor woman; not a lady," the woman 
said. "She told me to come here." "Here" 
was the women's ward in the Newport Market 
Refuge, a long room, with slender iron pillars, 
and a double row of narrow beds on either side 
of the middle passage. The beds were wooden 
frames stretched with sacking, and fastened to 
the wall. By each bed a woman was standing, 
waiting while some one at the far end of the 
room was busily preparing bowls of hot coffee 
and dividing hunches of white bread. One or 
two of the women looked scared and sad, but 
not all. Till this person spoke to me, I should 
never have guessed how the week had passed 
for her, nor what straits she was in. I had 
even wondered to see her there, for her appear- 
ance was decent and respectable, and her face 
looked quiet and cheerful ; only, when she an- 
'swered me, her eyes filled with tears, and her 
voice failed. This was the only woman to 
whom I spoke ; but I suppose there were some 
thirty of them in the long room, who had just 
been let in out of the rain. 

I had come a long way, and the horse had 
struggled and stumbled through the black, 
twinkling mud, for it was dark and wet with 
rain, this London winter's evening ; dim crowds 
were flitting and hurrying along shadowy pave- 
ments that all the flaming gas-becks in the 
shop-fronts were not enough to lighten ; no sky 
overhead, no tops to the houses, but a dense 
Christmas vapor dripping upon the heads of 
the passers-by. We turned from gas to utter 
blackness out of the long street which had put 
me in mind of some foreign street for odd 



stores, tobacco, bird-cages, jewelry-shops ; and 
then Ave jolted into dark and lonely places 
where no lights were shining, and no one pass- 
ed. The cab stopped, and the man asked me 
which was the way to go. A small shrill ghost 
appearing in a door-way, and hearing us talk 
of the Newport Refuge, screamed out to us to 
"go ba-ack, turn to the roight, and then to the 
lef'agin;" and then, in another gloom, the 
stumbling horse stopped once more, and the 
driver opened the door of the cab. The rain 
was beginning to cease, but the drops still 
dripped as I stood in the middle of a muddy 
sheet to which I could see no shore. As well 
as I could make out, we were in a narrow sort 
of court-passage opening into a wider court, 
with tall tenements inclosing it. One or two 
people were standing round about something 
that looked like a big barn-door half open. 
"In there, missus," said a man with a pipe; 
and so out of the darkness I stumbled through 
the barn-door. 

I was a little bewildered after my long drive 
by what seemed at first a dazzle of light, a din 
of voices, a sudden strumming of distant mu- 
sic I think I went up some steps. I 

saw a staircase, a passage, in which was a 
lighted window, and a man's face looking out 
over some books. A woman was standing at 
the window, a great round clock was ticking, 
and its hands were pointing to ten minutes 
past five. I asked the porter if this was the 
Refuge, and if the people were all in for the 
night? Yes, they were all come, some sixty 
of them, out of the street. "We let them in 
early to-night," said the man at the window, 
"because of the rain." 

I myself was glad enough to get under shel- 
ter. I don't know how I should have felt if I 
had been walking about all day and all the night 
before, and all the day before that, and the night 
before that again, in the slough without, as some 
of the people had done who were just admitted. 
If I had come to ask for a night's lodging, the 
man at the window would have asked me my 
name, what I worked at, where I slept the night 
before. The other woman standing beside me 
said she made envelopes, had been turned off" 
some weeks, meant to go to this place and that 
in the morning to ask for work ; had tried all 
day long, and all the shops, and didn't know 
what she should do. 

"There is no reason why you should not find 
employment," said the man at the window. 
" People write as many letters in winter as in 
summer. You should ask at the manufactories 
instead of going to the shops. There is a man 
here to-night who had given up asking in de- 
spair. I sent him to Messrs. , and he got 

work immediately. You can go up." 

One of the committee, who had come in with 
a dripping umbrella, asked if the woman had 
ever been there before ? 

"No," she said, anxiously. "Mrs. So-and- 
so in the court had took her in last night, and 
the neighbors told her to come." 



424 



MISCELLANIES. 



The porter nodded, and at tins sign of 
Watchful's the poor Christiana, nothing loath, 
trudged up to her supper by the wooden stairs 
that led to the women's dormitories. It was 
a very simple affair, soon settled, and the man 
shut up his book for the night, for the people 
were all in. There they were, two long lines 
of names all the way down the page. 

I followed Mr. C. througli the men's ward, 
which was on tlie ground-floor. It was like 
the women's ward, more beds, more suppers 
jjreparing, and more weary folks waiting to eat, 
and rest a little while, before they started again 
on their rounds. I followed my friend quickly 
down this middle passage, for the many eyes 
fixed upon us made us glad to escape. I was 
surprised by the respectable self-respecting look 
of most of the refugees. They did not look 
like people often look in work-houses, with that 
peculiar half-hopeless, half-cunning face, which 
is so miserable to see. There were some work- 
men and others, shabbily dressed, but still re- 
spectable, and looking like shopmen or clerks 
or servants out of place. One boy, I remem- 
ber, glanced up with a bright handsome Lord 
Byron face as we passed, and I also carried 
away the vision of a melancholy old man with 
a ragged beard, sitting staring before him, with 
his hands on his knees. After we left the ward, 
Mr. C. began telling me something of the peo- 
ple who came to it. They were of all trades 
and callings: clergymen, officers, schoolmasters, 
a well-known radical reformer, a billiard-mark- 
er, a surgeon. In last year's list I see fifty-one 
tailors and si.\teen waiters were admitted. They 
come in for a night or two, or stay on longer 
if there seems any reason for it, or chance of 
employment. To some of us it may seem sad 
to read that no less than sixty-five soldiers took 
refuge in the ward last year, and that no other 
calling has sent so many applicants for relief. 
"Of all who come," said Watchful, "they are 
the most difficult to provide for. We got one a 
situation in a county jail the other day ; but it 
is not always that we can help them." Men 
of war, mulcted of their arms, discharged be- 
fore they have served their time, knowing no 
trade, sick, helpless. It seems a hard fate 
enough. I heard of some poor invalided fel- 
lows coming back from India the other day, 
discharged, in high spirits at the prospect of 
getting away and seeing their friends and homes 
again. ' ' Good-bye, you Asiatics ! " one of them 
shouted, waving his cap, as the train set off. 
The farewells are cheerful, perhaps, but the 
welcomes awaiting these poor men at their 
journeys' end are not cheei'ing to contem- 
plate. Some of these soldiers are discharged 
for bad conduct, but others have sad stories 
to tell. I could not help wondering the other 
night, as I talked to my guide, who there was 
among the men of peace ready to fight their 
battles. 

Here, in the Newport Refuge, many got help- 
ed, one way and another. Trouble and time are 
given ungrudgingly by the committee, by the peo- 



ple upon the establishment, and by the kindest 
of sisters, in her nice gray dress and white cap. 
Tliis lady is in charge of the women's department. 
She sits in her quaint dark room, leading ou 
the women's sleeping-ward, with its glass doors 
opening every instant to admit one or other per- 
son — application, complaint, inquiry, petition. 
The women come, the boys come, the committee 
comes, and its wives and stray outsiders like my- 
self; but there is a method in all these comings 
and goings, a meaning and an unaffected kind- 
ness and good fellowship that impress one irre- 
sistibly. The sister told me to go and see the 
boys' refuge, and the kitchen, where all the sup- 
pers were preparing. It was a large kitchen on 
the ground-floor, with cocoa-nut matting and 
generous-looking pans and coppers, and a wliite 
cook watching the coffee-pots that were just be- 
ginning to boil. 

The Newport Refuge not only takes in people 
to sleep for the night and cooks their supper for 
them, but there Arc also some small folks whom 
it keeps altogether — certain homeless boys, who 
live in the old house, and who are taught and 
fed, and finally started in life from this curious 
busy hive of a home. We went wandering 
among the dark passages of this ancient high- 
roofed barn, this foggy, flaring, winter's night. 
A painter dealing in lights and sudden glooms 
might have found more than one subject for his 
art. Through an open door I caught sight of 
a little group of tailors at work. They were in 
a long low play-room, where I have been amused 
to see the boys darting about in the twilight like 
imps at play, shouting, galloping, gambolling. 
Now the little imps were hard at work in a bright 
corner of the dark room, squatting cross-legged 
in a circle on the floor, round a tall lamp, and 
demurely stitching at the rents and patches 
in their various garments. Gray walls, gray 
boys, with their little brown faces, a black mas- 
ter ; strongly marked shadows and lights, a red 
handkerchief tied round a boy's neck — it does 
not take much to make up a harmonious picture. 
The little fellows were unconscious of pictorial 
effect as they sat cobbling and mending a few 
of the tears and tatters that exist in this seam- 
ripped world. The triumph of the tailors was 
a grand pair of trowsers that one of the little 
fellows had achieved, with all the buttons gleam- 
ing brass. The conqueror himself, I believe, 
was dispatched to fetch the garment, which was 
displayed before us — the banner of the industri- 
ous little phalanx at our feet. The master- 
tailor and the committee-man had a little talk 
together, wliile I watched the boys' youthful 
fingers sticking in stitches witli much applica- 
tion, but some uncertainty. So-and-so Mas to 
be apprenticed, such an one had sent a good 
account of himself, another wanted to give up 
tailoring altogether; and when tlie little con- 
sultation was over we left the tailors, and climb- 
ed a winding stair. It seemed to lead us into 
the kingdom of boys. A cheerful jingle of 
sounds, scrapings, boyish voices, met us from 



cap. , 

ent. I 
tof } 



CHIRPING CRICKETS. 



425 



above, from below ; small clumping steps and 
echoes; boys flying up and down, disappearing 
through doors. In one room by the light of a 
blazing fire, a number of little fellows were troll- 
ing out a Christmas hymn, at the pitch of their 
childish voices. In the intervals of this hymn 
came a brilliant accompaniment from above of 
I don't know what trumpets, trombones, flutes, 
executing some martial measure. The two 
strains went on quite independently of each 
other, and making noise enough, each in its 
own place, to deafen the auditors and drown 
every other sound. 

One of the choristers was pointed to by the 
umbrelhi, and beckoned oft' to come and show 
us the sleeping-ward, where the boys each pos- 
sess a box, a suit of Sunday-clothes, a bed, a 
gray blanket and a red one, and a nice little 
pair of sheets, all doubled up like a roly-poly 
pudding, neatly cut through the middle. 

The young chorister proceeded to make his 
Iicd very nicely and expeditiously. While he 
\vas accomplishing this little task, I saw the 
grand pair of trowsers being carefully put away 
in the box of their fortunate possessor. 

Up stairs, in a sort of loft, where the bands- 
men were practising, while the master beat 
time energetically, the little musicians pufied 
and blew at enormous instruments, by the 
music on the stands before them. The little 
fellows seemed to me like all the champions of 
Christendom manfully struggling with vomiting 
monsters and yawning dragons. One boy was 
solemnly puffing away at an ophicleide quite as 
big as he was, with an enormous proboscis that 
seemed ready to gobble him up each time it ad- 
vanced; others gallantly grasped writhing brass 
serpents ; a rosy-cheeked infant was playing on 
the flute, a boy on a bench was reading a song- 
book, a charwoman was scrubbing the floor. 
The sister, in her quaint gray gown, came up the 
stairs, and stood smiling at the overflowing 
music, and beckoning to us : for we could not 
hear her speak in the din of their youthful lungs 
and violent trumpets and trombones. The sis- 
ter wanted us to come to the shoemakers, before 
they left off" work. 

So we left the musicians, playing their tri- 
umphant march. Well may they play it, fortu- 
nate little musicians, rescued from the darkness 
without, where no stars are shining, and mon- 
sters, not harmless and tamable like these, aie 
wandering ready to make a prey of children and 



weakness and helpless things, vainly struggling 
against the dark and deadly powers of ignorance 
and want. 

The little shoemakers were finishing for the 
day. They lived at the other end of the build- 
ing in a cell all to themselves. There was a 
kind, eager young master to direct them ; there 
were more gas-becks, more lights and shadows, 
brown-faced boys, drills and lasts, A-ery thick 
little boots on the floor, with nails, drills, 
and shapes, and abundant energy. The sister 
laughed, seeing the little fellows' desperate ef- 
forts. " Look at Carter," she said, " how hard 
he is working!" Carter grinned, but did not 
look up, and tugged away at his leather thongs 
more vigorously than ever. They offered to 
make me a pair of shoes. They had made 
some for the sister already. This very day a 
friend has consented to be measured for a pair 
of hobnailed boots. As we were finding our 
way down stairs back to the sister's room again, 
we began to meet trays of food, like trays in a 
pantomime, coming up apparently of their own 
accord. " Go down, trays," cried the sister, 
and the slices of bread, the mugs, etc., began 
slowly to descend again. * 

The sister told me that the little bandsman I 
had seen with the flute was the son of a soldier at 
the Cape, who had brought him to the Home be- 
fore he left, and who regularly paid for him out of 
his earnings, and wished that he should be brought 
up a bandsman. Some children are drafted on 
to other institutions; some are apprenticed. 
Grown-up people are helped one way and an- 
other. I heard of a cook who had no clothes, but 
who knew of work. 'J'his man was given clothes, 
and allowed to live there long enough to save a 
few shillings out of his wages, so as to redeem 
his things and set up in a lodging for himself. 
The report tells of newspaper editors and mu- 
sicians helped on to work. Servants come in 
great straits, and they, too, are assisted. 

I have not space to set down all the ways and 
means, and people, and wants, and supplies, that 
are brought together here. 

It is pleasant to come away from these refuges 
and hospitals with a remembrance of children's 
laughter in the twilight, and voices at play, 
of troubles quieted, of the sick and wounded 
made M'hole, of a divine light of hope and love 
sliining u])on the arid and blighted vineyard, 
and the weury or failing laborers at work among 
the vines. 



THE END. 



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